From: Edward Hobbs (EHOBBS@wellesley.edu)
Date: Mon Jan 20 1997 - 16:54:04 EST
[Three missing lines restored to earlier post]
Dear Henry Something, and Colleagues of B-Greek,
To my comment that "translation usually betrays something about the 
original.  The Italians have a phrase for that, but I think they say 
"always",
Henry wrote:
<You said that the Italians have a phrase for it - perchance you were 
<thinking of
<"Traduttore traditore."
<(The translator is a traitor.)  But there's no "always", ...
I confess being a little surprised (a bit as though I wrote "Didn't a Dane 
once wonder To be or not to be?" and receive a message, "That was Hamlet, 
and it was in a play by Shakespeare").  I thought everyone knew the 
expression--especially since it has been quoted often enough on this very 
List, by me in the olden days, and more recently by Carl Conrad.  I said 
"Italians" because, although there is an analogous phrase in Latin and one 
in Greek, I have often heard Italian scholars who teach languages say:
        "Traduttore sempre traditore" or "Traduttore traditore--sempre!"
Not knowing any native speakers of Latin or Greek, I have not heard the word 
"never" used by them in the phrase--only by Italian professors.
My "but I think they say 'always'" was my delicate way of referring to this 
frequent addition, uttered by enough Italians scholars in my presence to 
make it almost a self-evident gloss.
Edward Hobbs
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