Beiträge: 43
Sprache: English
erinja (Profil anzeigen) 9. April 2011 23:52:30
horsto:I think that since Esperanto has great expressive power, we have other options than to use sen- (without) when we don't really mean without. In fact we mean "little" but not "none at all".erinja:In English we don't say that an underdog has no chance. Being an underdog means only that you are unlikely to win.I'm wondering about your argument. Are you saying that because you don't say that in english it's not possible to use it in Esperanto?
If Esperanto didn't have other options, then maybe I would be in favour of saying "senŝanculo" but since we have so many better translations, which more precisely transmit the meaning of the English word, I would prefer to use something else.
Kirilo81 (Profil anzeigen) 10. April 2011 11:30:47
darkweasel:But subtaksi is verbal compound with adverbial sub thought as in "under value", that's not the same as a nominal compound with a prepositional phrase as its first constituent: subŝanculo is a person who is "under his/her chance" - which makes no sence.Kirilo81:We recently mentioned subtaksi on this forum.T0dd:Now that I think about it again, recalling that sub has the non-spatial meaning of insufficiency, as well as its primary spatial meaning, I suppose subŝanculo is also possible.Could you give some examples? I just know non-spatial sub- with the sence of "hiddenly, illegally" (subaŭskulti, subaĉeti).
Sorry for hair-splitting, but as a lot of people will probably use the result of this lengthy discussion, it should be linguistically flawless.
horsto (Profil anzeigen) 10. April 2011 12:28:34
erinja:Okay, that's of course a good arguement. I now think I found the "best" translation, but unfortunately it's quite long: apenaŭŝanculo
I think that since Esperanto has great expressive power, we have other options than to use sen- (without) when we don't really mean without.
ceigered (Profil anzeigen) 11. April 2011 11:34:44
3rdblade (Profil anzeigen) 11. April 2011 13:46:48
but the phrase "underdog" in English makes as much sense.Thinking about this discussion, I realised how important the 'dog' part of 'underdog' is to give that word its full flavour. People have a special thing for dogs, we know they mean well and they always seem so sincere. I think a big part of the meaning of 'underdog' is the way the audience sees the underdog as one. In fact, if the sport or contest has no audience, I don't think we would even use the word 'underdog'.
Anyway, it's pretty hard to get all that into a word, and we've had some good suggestions which should suit.
Somehting dog-related to give more context, from the proverboj: "Kiu hundon mian batas, min mem ne tre ŝatas."
Altebrilas (Profil anzeigen) 11. April 2011 20:13:02
horsto (Profil anzeigen) 11. April 2011 20:29:13
3rdblade: I realised how important the 'dog' part of 'underdog' is to give that word its full flavour.That's funny! Until now I thought underdogs means that this team has been attacked by dogs (competitors), that the dogs have crushed down the team, but now I realize that the meaning is the position in the hierarchy of dogs.
jefusan (Profil anzeigen) 11. April 2011 21:48:39
It gets across the idea that it's unlikely he would win, but you never know....
erinja (Profil anzeigen) 12. April 2011 00:11:09
jefusan:How about "testudo," referring to the famous story of "La testudo kaj la leporo"?Highly confusing in cases where the University of Maryland is favored to win against another school...
sudanglo (Profil anzeigen) 12. April 2011 10:30:45
This is confimed by the definition of malsupera - 'havanta relative malpli altan rangon, malpli bonajn ecojn.
Malsupera overlaps somewhat with the usages of 'sub', but is more clearly hierarchical.
So the 'malsupera teamo' or the 'malsuperuloj' would seem to be the underdogs.
A 'senŝanculo' could be an 'outsider' in a horse race, though depending on context perhaps it could be also seen as referring to an underdog.
The problem with the Wells' translation as 'malplifortulo' is that this could just mean the weaker contestant, though again, with context, it might be translated back in English with 'underdog'.
As is usual with problems of translation, it may not be possible to identify a single term as occupying the same semantic territory as the word to be translated, and different solutions in different contexts may be the only possibility.