Timeline for Meaning/translation of title "The Light Fantastic" by Terry Pratchett
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
20 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| May 23, 2021 at 20:07 | history | edited | bobble | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
not about the act of translation, minor copy edits
|
| Mar 9, 2020 at 14:44 | history | edited | Rand al'Thor♦ |
edited tags
|
|
| Oct 2, 2019 at 12:55 | comment | added | April Salutes Monica C. | One other element I took from the title: the specific genre he's in is "Light Fantasy" (exact opposite of "Hard SF") -- the rules are made up and the points don't matter. Just presented in a slightly more pretentious way, which matches his mockery of the genre (more pronounced in the earlier books). | |
| S Oct 2, 2019 at 10:33 | history | suggested | DaG | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
Grammar and the like
|
| Oct 2, 2019 at 10:31 | review | Suggested edits | |||
| S Oct 2, 2019 at 10:33 | |||||
| Oct 2, 2019 at 1:07 | answer | added | Please stop being evil | timeline score: 2 | |
| Oct 1, 2019 at 8:13 | comment | added | DevSolar | Pratchett's witty work can be hard to translate. The early Diskworld works (especially "The Color of Magic" and "The Light Fantastic") also have a rather different tone, more of a farce than the satirical fantasy Diskworld later became. Some early translations (e.g. the German one) went with the farce, which (IMHO) did hurt the Diskworld series as a whole as names that had become overly farcical in translation became more and more inappropriate as the series went on. FWIW, the German title is "Das Licht der Fantasie", which pretty unambigiously retranslates to "the light of fantasy". | |
| Oct 1, 2019 at 2:24 | comment | added | user207421 | As per the quotation from Milton, to 'trip the light fantastic' is to dance. | |
| Sep 30, 2019 at 18:02 | comment | added | Agent_L | English has pretty strict word order. Anything other than "fantastic light" raises a flag and hints a secret meaning. In Polish it was translated as "Blask Fantastyczny" which is what you meant, and what's in the book, but I'm sure the author deliberately tried to mislead readers, which is what "Ľahká fantastika" achieves. | |
| Sep 30, 2019 at 5:01 | vote | accept | Piro | ||
| S Sep 30, 2019 at 4:26 | history | suggested | Vikki | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
Fixing spelling.
|
| Sep 30, 2019 at 3:30 | review | Suggested edits | |||
| S Sep 30, 2019 at 4:26 | |||||
| Sep 29, 2019 at 19:20 | comment | added | Peter Shor | I think this is a triple pun by Pratchett. 1: The light (adj, humorous, not serious) fantastic (noun, speculative fiction). 2: The light (noun, illumination) fantastic (adj. magical). 3: as in Milton. But I agree that (2) is the meaning they should have picked for the translation. | |
| Sep 29, 2019 at 16:10 | answer | added | Valorum | timeline score: 38 | |
| Sep 29, 2019 at 15:52 | answer | added | user7835 | timeline score: 0 | |
| Sep 29, 2019 at 13:54 | history | became hot network question | |||
| Sep 29, 2019 at 10:50 | answer | added | Chenmunka | timeline score: 7 | |
| Sep 29, 2019 at 9:31 | answer | added | Spagirl | timeline score: 35 | |
| Sep 29, 2019 at 5:50 | review | First posts | |||
| Sep 29, 2019 at 10:45 | |||||
| Sep 29, 2019 at 5:48 | history | asked | Piro | CC BY-SA 4.0 |