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Claudia
Guest
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| Posted: Mon Oct 10, 2005 9:10 pm
Post subject: Help me understand this phrase, please. |
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Hi everybody!
I'm translating a novel, based on a true story during US Civil War,
about a woman who, rather than let someone plow over the field where
they had been buried, decided to bury more than 1,000 soldiers in her
own backyard. She's also sheltering dozen of orphans and one, in
particular, has the bad habit to follow her into the cemetery. She
doesn't want him to and tries her best to be persuasive. And at this
point, in the novel, come this phrase:
«She'd have made it so that ne never went into any cemetery again and
never heard of or saw a dead person the rest of his life. She'd done
plenty of time with the dead, more than enough time to **exempt the
people she loved from morbidity**». Can anybody please explain me the
phrase in ** **? What's morbidity, in this case?
Thank you very much for your help!
Claudia
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Paul Burke
Guest
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| Posted: Mon Oct 10, 2005 9:34 pm
Post subject: Re: Help me understand this phrase, please. |
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Claudia wrote:
| Quote: | «She'd have made it so that ne never went into any cemetery again and
never heard of or saw a dead person the rest of his life. She'd done
plenty of time with the dead, more than enough time to **exempt the
people she loved from morbidity**». Can anybody please explain me the
phrase in ** **? What's morbidity, in this case?
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Morbidity means fascination with death in this case.
You've got to look at this in the context of the 19th Century (I'd have
said 'Victorian' except it's USA) obsession with death, funerals and
mourning. Children would be taken to see a dead neighbour or family
member before the funeral, the funeral itself would be as elaborate as
the family could afford, they competed to erect ever more elaborate
memorials, and official mourning periods were extended- to years in some
cases. So I think this woman feels that she has perhaps overdone the
cult of death, and wishes to bring her charges up to be free of it.
Paul Burke |
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Claudia
Guest
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| Posted: Mon Oct 10, 2005 10:00 pm
Post subject: Re: Help me understand this phrase, please. |
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Paul Burke wrote:
| Quote: | Claudia wrote:
«She'd have made it so that ne never went into any cemetery again and
never heard of or saw a dead person the rest of his life. She'd done
plenty of time with the dead, more than enough time to **exempt the
people she loved from morbidity**». Can anybody please explain me the
phrase in ** **? What's morbidity, in this case?
Morbidity means fascination with death in this case.
You've got to look at this in the context of the 19th Century (I'd have
said 'Victorian' except it's USA) obsession with death, funerals and
mourning. Children would be taken to see a dead neighbour or family
member before the funeral, the funeral itself would be as elaborate as
the family could afford, they competed to erect ever more elaborate
memorials, and official mourning periods were extended- to years in some
cases. So I think this woman feels that she has perhaps overdone the
cult of death, and wishes to bring her charges up to be free of it.
Paul Burke
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Thank you very much, Paul, now it does make sense.
Claudia
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Molly Mockford
Guest
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| Posted: Tue Oct 11, 2005 12:40 am
Post subject: Re: Help me understand this phrase, please. |
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At 16:34:59 on Mon, 10 Oct 2005, Paul Burke <paul@scazon.com> wrote in
<3qvgphFgmpp6U1@individual.net>:
| Quote: | Claudia wrote:
‹She'd have made it so that ne never went into any cemetery again
and never heard of or saw a dead person the rest of his life. She'd
done plenty of time with the dead, more than enough time to **exempt
the people she loved from morbidity**›. Can anybody please explain
me the phrase in ** **? What's morbidity, in this case?
Morbidity means fascination with death in this case.
|
I'm not so sure - I think it just means "death" in this case. It's used
in this sense in, for instance, the National Morbidity Statistics -
stats on the causes of death. No fascination there.
--
Molly Mockford
They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety
deserve neither liberty nor safety - Benjamin Franklin
(My Reply-To address *is* valid, though may not remain so for ever.) |
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Paul Burke
Guest
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| Posted: Tue Oct 11, 2005 1:14 pm
Post subject: Re: Help me understand this phrase, please. |
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Molly Mockford wrote:
| Quote: |
I'm not so sure - I think it just means "death" in this case. It's used
in this sense in, for instance, the National Morbidity Statistics -
stats on the causes of death.
|
I took the phrase as in "to take a morbid interest in". This to me
describes (what I took as ) the unhealthy interest that the orphan had
for the cemetery; however, I agree that the writing could be more
subtle, and include overtones about expetion from death itself.
What's the title of the book (in English)? I get the feeling that the
woman is beginning to realise that it's HER fascination with death that
is at the heart of the problem. A detail: were the bodies lying
unburied, or was she exhuming them for reburial?
Paul Burke |
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Claudia
Guest
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| Posted: Tue Oct 11, 2005 1:14 pm
Post subject: Re: Help me understand this phrase, please. |
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Molly Mockford wrote:
| Quote: | At 16:34:59 on Mon, 10 Oct 2005, Paul Burke <paul@scazon.com> wrote in
3qvgphFgmpp6U1@individual.net>:
Claudia wrote:
‹She'd have made it so that ne never went into any cemetery again and
never heard of or saw a dead person the rest of his life. She'd done
plenty of time with the dead, more than enough time to **exempt the
people she loved from morbidity**›. Can anybody please explain me the
phrase in ** **? What's morbidity, in this case?
Morbidity means fascination with death in this case.
I'm not so sure - I think it just means "death" in this case. It's used
in this sense in, for instance, the National Morbidity Statistics -
stats on the causes of death. No fascination there.
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Thanks Molly, and good morning! (Here in Milan it's 9:04 am)
I don't think that, in this case, morbidity = fascination with death
neither. If fact, in anotoher NG, I got this suggestion (which is very
close to my first guess). What do you think about it? Here it is:
I'd imagine that she was hoping the people she loved would not have to be as
concerned with death and the dead as she had been forced to be. In other
words, she'd spent so more than her share of time preoccupied with death and
the dead, so she hoped that her loved ones would be spared this burden.
I used the idea of "be spared this burden" in Italian, and got a quite
good translation.
=) Thank you very much for you answer and explaination.
Claudia |
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Claudia
Guest
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| Posted: Tue Oct 11, 2005 1:43 pm
Post subject: Re: Help me understand this phrase, please. |
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Paul Burke wrote:
| Quote: | Molly Mockford wrote:
I'm not so sure - I think it just means "death" in this case. It's
used in this sense in, for instance, the National Morbidity Statistics
- stats on the causes of death.
I took the phrase as in "to take a morbid interest in". This to me
describes (what I took as ) the unhealthy interest that the orphan had
for the cemetery; however, I agree that the writing could be more
subtle, and include overtones about expetion from death itself.
What's the title of the book (in English)? I get the feeling that the
woman is beginning to realise that it's HER fascination with death that
is at the heart of the problem. A detail: were the bodies lying
unburied, or was she exhuming them for reburial?
Paul Burke
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The title is "The Widow of the South" by Robert Hicks. My quote is taken
from the prologue, which is set in 1894. Please, read this:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0446500127/103-6898971-3624660?v=glance
(It's surely a better and clearer English than mine, I'm afraid). IMHO,
the author means she has spent so much time with death (her daughters
died young, then came the war with thousands of young boys dead) she now
hopes her loved ones to be spared her same burden (= she doesn't want
her loved ones to even see or hear of a dead person, as it's written in
the previous sentence). But, to me (and I'm Italian, not English nor
American), the word morbidity also suggests some kind of fascination
overtones... This is way I asked your (the NG's) help. =)
Here is the quote again:
«She'd have made it so that ne never went into any cemetery again and
never heard of or saw a dead person the rest of his life. She'd done
plenty of time with the dead, more than enough time to **exempt the
people she loved from morbidity**». |
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