Library Catalog
Amazon cover image
Image from Amazon.com

The Astonishment of Words : An Experiment in the Comparison of Languages / Victor Proetz.

By: Contributor(s): Material type: TextTextPublisher: Austin : University of Texas Press, [2021]Copyright date: ©1971Description: 1 online resource (200 p.)Content type:
Media type:
Carrier type:
ISBN:
  • 9780292758285
Subject(s): DDC classification:
  • 418.02
Other classification:
  • online - DeGruyter
Online resources:
Contents:
Frontmatter -- Contents -- Foreword -- The Game -- The Illustrations -- Afterword -- Sources
Summary: One, two! one, two! And through and through The vorpal blade went snicker-snack! He left it dead, and with its head He went galumphing back. Un deux, un deux, par le milieu, Le glaive vorpal fait pat-à-pan! La bête défaite, avec sa tête, Il rentre gallomphant. Eins, Zwei! Eins, Zwei! Und durch und durch Seins vorpals Schwert zerschniferschnück. Da blieb es todt! Er, Kopf in Hand, Geläumfig zog zurück! The late Victor Proetz was by vocation a visual artist who created many distinguished architectural and decorative designs. His favorite avocation, however, was to explore the possibilities (and impossibilities) of words, especially words in translation, and to share his discoveries. As Alastair Reid says in his foreword, "He turned words over in his head, he listened to them, he unraveled them, he looked them up, he played with them, he passed them on like presents, all with an unjadeable astonishment." What, Proetz wondered, do some of the familiar and not-so-familiar works of English and American literature sound like in French? In German? "How," he asked, "do you say 'Yankee Doodle' in French—if you can?" And "How do they say 'Hounyhnhnm' and 'Cheshire Cat' and things like that in German?" And, in either language, "How, in God's name, can you possibly say 'There she blows!'?" This book, unfortunately left incomplete on his death in 1966, contains many of his answers. They are given not only in the assembled texts and translations but also in his wry, curious, sometimes hilarious commentaries. None of it is scholarly in any formal, academic sense—"and yet," Reid reminds us, "his is precisely the kind of enthusiastic curiosity that gives scholarship its pointers."
Holdings
Item type Current library Call number URL Status Notes Barcode
eBook eBook Biblioteca "Angelicum" Pont. Univ. S.Tommaso d'Aquino Nuvola online online - DeGruyter (Browse shelf(Opens below)) Online access Not for loan (Accesso limitato) Accesso per gli utenti autorizzati / Access for authorized users (dgr)9780292758285

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Foreword -- The Game -- The Illustrations -- Afterword -- Sources

restricted access online access with authorization star

http://purl.org/coar/access_right/c_16ec

One, two! one, two! And through and through The vorpal blade went snicker-snack! He left it dead, and with its head He went galumphing back. Un deux, un deux, par le milieu, Le glaive vorpal fait pat-à-pan! La bête défaite, avec sa tête, Il rentre gallomphant. Eins, Zwei! Eins, Zwei! Und durch und durch Seins vorpals Schwert zerschniferschnück. Da blieb es todt! Er, Kopf in Hand, Geläumfig zog zurück! The late Victor Proetz was by vocation a visual artist who created many distinguished architectural and decorative designs. His favorite avocation, however, was to explore the possibilities (and impossibilities) of words, especially words in translation, and to share his discoveries. As Alastair Reid says in his foreword, "He turned words over in his head, he listened to them, he unraveled them, he looked them up, he played with them, he passed them on like presents, all with an unjadeable astonishment." What, Proetz wondered, do some of the familiar and not-so-familiar works of English and American literature sound like in French? In German? "How," he asked, "do you say 'Yankee Doodle' in French—if you can?" And "How do they say 'Hounyhnhnm' and 'Cheshire Cat' and things like that in German?" And, in either language, "How, in God's name, can you possibly say 'There she blows!'?" This book, unfortunately left incomplete on his death in 1966, contains many of his answers. They are given not only in the assembled texts and translations but also in his wry, curious, sometimes hilarious commentaries. None of it is scholarly in any formal, academic sense—"and yet," Reid reminds us, "his is precisely the kind of enthusiastic curiosity that gives scholarship its pointers."

Mode of access: Internet via World Wide Web.

In English.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 26. Apr 2022)