FOOD FOR THE
N.R.F.
667
you how difficult it is to find steady English equivalents for
esprit,
constater, il
s>
agit de,
etc. but few seem to know that there an; aids
to reflection on these matters.
It
is a sign of the unprofessional char–
acter of the business that no translator with whom I have talked
had ever heard of
Les Faux Amis
by Koessler and Derocquigny or
Le Mot fuste
by
J.
G. Anderson (rev. Harmer). Both books list and
define words that look alike but mean different things in French and
English. The former, which is especially rich in comment and ex–
amples, works from the French side upon English words; the latter
confronts kindred pairs of words and idioms in a spirit of enlightened
neutrality. Both should be not merely consulted at need, but read
and re-read (occasionally corrected) until the chief oddities of both
tongues have become items of familiar knowledge-like the fact that
a meter is not the same as a yard.
This suggests the next step. Grim as it may sound, the translator
must keep
in
training by asking himself, at any time, while reading
any book (in either language), "How would I say it in English?"
Like the violinist, he is an interpreter and cannot avoid thoughts of
adroit fingering even in the midst of pleasure. Indeed, the translator
cannot help becoming something of a grammarian in the unfavorable
sense: he is bound to be a reader of grammars and dictionaries.
No one volume is perfect enough for his needs, though it may
be said that the professional must own at least Grevisse,
Le
Bon Usage
(the counterpart of Fowler's
Modern English Usage),
and should have
access to Littre. Of lesser dictionaries, the Oxford French is remark–
ably compact and true, and it begins with a soundly philosophic
preface on the kind of life one must lead in order to give accurate
renderings: not by any means a description of the Good Life, but
rather of the full life, poised between literature and worldly pursuits,
and dedicated to matching words with all men on
all
occasions. The
compilers themselves answer to these specifications, even though they
too stumble once or twice: they will tell you that
jeu d'esprit
means
witticism, which it doesn't.
Every turn of the road brings us face to face with Nemesis, that
is to say with the recognition that complete ,and unfailing equivalence
is impossible. Accordingly the third duty of the translator is to atone
for inevitable shortcomings by a sustained impersonation of his orig–
inal. He may rob Peter by reflex action but he pays Paul with com-
