Friday, November 26, 2010

Problems with the Translation of Fr. Giussani's "Is It Possible To Live This Way?"

The translation of Fr. Luigi Giussani's "Si può vivere così?" into English ("Is It Possible to Live This Way?") seems to have some problems that make it unnecessarily hard to understand. For example:
Se c’è una ragione, non puoi dire: «ma è astratta» perché la ragione è ciò che risponde al bisogno del cuore
is translated as:
If there is a reason, you can't say: "but it is abstract," because reason is what responds to the need of the heart
Note that a word (which I have highlighted in red) is missing from the translation. It should say "because the reason is what responds to the need of the heart". Not "because reason is what responds to the need of the heart", which does not make sense: when has reason ever responded to the need of the heart? Instead, Giussani is speaking of "a reason" mentioned at the start of the sentence.

"Reason" sounds profound but it does not make sense here, and is not what Fr. Giussani is saying in his sentence. Thus the reader is confused. Fr. Giussani's original Italian is hard enough to understand as it is; it is unfortunate that the problematic English translation adds an additional barrier to understanding.

Sunday, November 21, 2010

What does Communion and Liberation believe in?

From what I can gather from a couple of websites, CL "looks at the experiences of our own lives in order to recognize Jesus’ presence, which is the key to human fulfillment."

Filed under: What the heck is Communion and Liberation?

Tuesday, November 16, 2010

SimuRide HE is giving me this error: "error on init 3d graph"

Friday, November 12, 2010

Some charges on my water bill I hadn't noticed before:
Sewer Fixed Charge
Sewer Usage Rate
CRD Sewer Treatment Charge

Monday, November 08, 2010

"Christian Revelation is the true lodestar of men and women as they strive to make their way amid the pressures of an immanentist habit of mind and the constrictions of a technocratic logic."
—Pope John Paul II, Fides et Ratio