|
|
Does your language have a garden path sentence?
"I was afraid of Ali's powerful PUNCH, especially since it had already laid out many tougher men who had bragged they could handle that much alcohol."
This sentence is called a "Garden Path Sentence". Does your language have that kind of sentence?
If you translate this sentence into some other language, would it still be a "garden path sentence"?
I don't know what the heck does a "Garden Path Sentence" mean, but I'll translate it into Spanish:
"Estaba asustado de los poderosos golpes de Ali, especialmente por que ya habia tumbado a varios hombres que habian insinuado que podian aguatar tanto alcohol"
English has so many homonyms and ambiguities (moreover with verbs that can be used as nouns and vice versa) that it can easily create lots of such humourous sentences — often without wanting it!
Most similar instances in French would be sentences like: "Ce type est paranoïaque mais presque" Which would translate as: "This guy is paranoid but nearly" but actually is understood as "Ce type est pas 'ranoïaque' mais presque" "This guy is not 'ranoid' but close to"
wow, I almost posted saying I still couldn't see how "The horse raced past the barn fell," but I finally got it. I kept getitng it wrong cause I kept thinking "The horse that raced," but it really means "the horse that WAS (someone) raced." So now, yes it does make sense. lol, awesome!
Thanks for sparking a new little moment of discovery on wikipedia. By looking up garden path sentence, I discovered "Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo" and other sentences with longs strings of words like "had had had had...." as well as a chinese poem completely composed of the sound "Shi." Really cool stuff. That "had had had..." sentence... it's kinda sad fnding out about it though. For YEARS, usually while i'm laying in bed, falling asleep, I've tried to figure out how many "that"s or "had"s I could string together and make a proper sentence. I don't remember ever going past 3. I think I strung 4 hads together, but I may have dismissed it. Problem was, I dunno....just... gah! Why didn't I think of quotation marks?? >.<
The garden path effect appears in French only in the spoken form, in German only in the written form, in English with both.
"Jaime manger épicé, mais pas en même temps" (a classic) "Bei meinem Haus am Stausee müssen die Staubecken gesäubert werden, am besten mit einem Staubtuch." (when pronounced, there's a knacklaut in "Staub'ecken" to disambiguate)
#I don't know what the heck does a "Garden Path Sentence" mean, but I'll translate it into Spanish:
"Estaba asustado de los poderosos golpes de Ali, especialmente por que ya habia tumbado a varios hombres que habian insinuado que podian aguatar tanto alcohol"# "to lead up the garden path" es una expresión que significa distraer/engañar (mislead). La combinación de 'Ali' y 'punch' hace pensar en Muhammad Alí hasta que uno lee la segunda cláusula y entonces se da cuenta que el significado de la oración es (traducido al español): "Estaba asustado del poderoso ponche de Ali, especialmente porque (el ponche) ya había tumbado a muchos hombres más duros (que yo) que habían fanfarroneado* que podían aguantar esa cantidad de alcohol" punch = ponche (bebida alcohólica) fanfarronear o alardear o jactarse
It is me, or you guys missed the punch (the drink) with punch (the swing, the sock, uppercut, the hit in the jaw, etc.) punchline?
"It is me, or you guys missed the punch (the drink) with punch (the swing, the sock, uppercut, the hit in the jaw, etc.) punchline?"
-- Someone did... Certainly because there are virtually no homophones in Spanish (as well as in Italian), which makes difficult to figure out what a garden path sentence might be.
the closest thing in spanish i can think of is "yo me (cazo/caso) con un (siervo/ciervo)"
which can mean: I marry a serf. I marry a deer. I hunt myself with a serf. I hunt myself with a deer. It only works spoken though. |