Translated material
Other languages #21
Why didn't the Russian writer Chekhov leave his medical wife for his literary mistress? This is the question asked by a professor of medicine and director of the Institute of Medicine at New York University who published his article in a medical journal . And he himself answers: because medical practice largely determined his creative method (here a venerable American physician, showing remarkable knowledge of Russian literature, compares Chekhov with Tolstoy and Gorky), and the profession of an engineer of human souls helped him to be a good doctor. Of which, according to the authoritative testimony of Professor Coolihan, there are not so many left in America.
Quote: Today we tend to view medicine as an unattractive scientific pursuit, and doctors themselves as more like technical personnel. This image of a doctor (which quite accurately reflects the real state of affairs) does not include the ability to empathize and sympathize, the ability to communicate with people - that is, precisely those qualities that, as Dr. Chekhov reminds us, are the cornerstone of healing.
Order a full translation of an article?Suddenly Haiku Joanna Weiss The Boston Globe
a haiku Anyone can write . There are five syllables in the first line, seven in the second and five again in the third. In general, you just need to be able to count to seven. This circumstance, apparently, forced a huge number of Americans to rush to Parnassus . Today, composing haiku seems to have become a new national sport in the United States, something like jogging: tercets composed by programmers, housewives, advertisers and emergency doctors. In the end, this is not so bad, people are again getting involved in art. And most importantly, he is not shy about his own creativity.
Quote: Unfortunately, not every new haiku fully corresponds to the spirit of this genre, says the president of the Boston Haiku Society. Here, for example, is a poem sent to the editor by one of the Detroit News readers:
Golf, golf, golf, golf, golf.
A hundred pounds, boy, this is
Michigan golf.
Can you feel the guitar sound on your ankles? (Can you hear music with your left foot?) Jerome Burne Times Financial
What color are five? What does green smell like? Previously, it was believed that only schizophrenics knew the answers to such questions. Then they thought that all this was nothing more than a figment of a well-developed imagination. But in 1995, Cambridge scientist Simon Baron-Cohen was able to prove that the synesthesia (mixing of different sensations) characteristic of some people is, in all likelihood, given at birth to everyone without exception, thanks to connections between different parts of the brain. Only over time, in most people, these connections are suppressed and different parts of the brain become separated from each other. The article is timed to reveal a new little secret of human consciousness: Canadian Daniel Smilek from the University of Waterloo in Ontario has found that color can be associated in the brains of synesthetes not only with, say, the number “5,” but even with the concept of “five.”
Quote: Today we know almost nothing about this, but somewhere in the depths are hidden the answers to many questions that may someday allow neuroscientists to explain what was going on in Nabokov's head when he wrote: "The Long English" "a" looks like wood that has lost its color over time, and the French "e" brings to mind polished ebony."
Order a full translation of an article?You Don't Say! Speaking Out in Favor Foreign Languages Joseph Hanimann Frankfurter Allgemeine
Soon all European languages will die out. There will only be English left - or rather, Anglo-American. The French were the first to catch on: six years ago, the country passed a law banning the use of English in advertising. However, formal prohibitory measures at the state level will lead to nothing, says the author of the article (himself, by the way, a German). As a result, a kind of diglossia , the coexistence of two languages: the national one for private life and English for public life, will soon flourish in many European countries.
Quote: French is one of the few languages in the world that has its own word for an electronic device, called a computer in the rest of the world. In French it is called ordinateur. It is curious that this name is borrowed from the medieval theological lexicon - deus ordinator (Divine Providence).
Order a full translation of an article?It's all Greek? Not any longer (Down with the Chinese letter) John Carr (John Carr) The Times
The Greeks are also concerned about the same problem. Recently, a large group of Greek intellectuals (philosophers, archaeologists, writers and even politicians) distributed a manifesto in which the dominance of the English language, penetrating into one of the oldest European languages mainly due to the general computerization of the population, was called nothing less than a “devilish obsession.” By the way, the author of the article notes, the Greek language has already been infringed by officials from the European Union: in license plates of Greek cars, it is allowed to use only those letters of the Greek alphabet that are found in the Latin alphabet.
Quote: When sending an email, many users prefer not to bother using Greek fonts, but write Greek words in Latin letters. Or, even worse, they correspond in English-computer slang.
Order a full translation of an article?Jean Sees Dead People Scott McLemee Feed
It’s time for Baudrillard , once a super-fashionable philosopher and exemplary postmodern intellectual, to retire, says the author of the article, commenting on the new book by the elderly thinker. The modern world seems to Baudrillard to be overflowing with dead images, multiplying at enormous speed. We live in a time that cannot end, there is no progress or decline. But if all this is so, why then does the elderly philosopher himself worry so much, writing more and more new books, the author of the article wonders.
Quote: No one's old age looks as disgusting as the old age of rebels who have lived through their best times. Perhaps the old age of the prophets of technological revolutions.
Order a full translation of an article?Dissecting a Masterpiece to Find Out How It Ticks Edward Rothstein The New York Times
Now many people say that there are no masterpieces, that this is simply a product of culture and all sorts of other social institutions. On the other hand, there are also such originals who continue to firmly believe in the absolute value of art. But the truth is somewhere in the middle, says the author of the article, who is trying to reconcile opponents. Edward Rothstein is convinced that any work of art (this is especially clear in the example of music) has its own internal structure, and if this structure resonates with external structures, then the work becomes a masterpiece. Thus, it turns out that despite the undoubted importance of external factors, the independent value of art cannot be discounted.
Quote: The purely objective aspects of music's internal patterns open up the possibility of a wide range of interpretations. Complex cultural meanings arise from abstract form.
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