Quote:
Originally Posted by doubleshuffle
Non-native speaker comprehension question: If things recur twice, doesn't that mean they happen three times?
If so, the translation of the Marx quote is wrong; in the German original Marx uses the verb sich ereignen, which means occur or happen.
But perhaps I don't get the meaning of recur right, so please enlighten me.
I'm not trying to nitpick, but by a weird coincidence I read someone misquoting Marx in German to the same effect just five minutes ago, so I'm curious.
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Yes, it may possibly be mistranslated. The translator's note says "D.D.L. New York, Sept. 12, 1897"; I don't know if it was a case of a native English speaker with an imperfect understanding of German or of a native German speaker with an imperfect understanding of English. Nevertheless, I do think that the translator captured Marx's wit, which is the main thing.