Πρόσεξε να μην πετάξεις μαζί με τα νερά και το παιδί
- Thread starter drsiebenmal
- Start date
Γιά εξηγήστε μου τώρα, εσείς που ξέρετε πολλά, γιατί έχουμε εδώ την τηλεγραφική τριτοπρόσωπη διατύπωση — και, μάλιστα, ένα ρήμα αμετάβατο και ένα μεταβατικό; Είναι απλώς ψευτοβαρβαρική διατύπωση; Έχουμε όνομα για αυτές τις «νηπιακές» διατυπώσεις;
Παρότι έχουμε ήδη αρκετά για την αρχικά γερμανική φράση που έγινε παροιμία - από τον Λούθηρο, καταπώς γράφει εκεί:
There is no doubt that the proverbial text gained rapid and universal acceptance in the satirical and polemic literature of the Age of the Reformation. Martin Luther (1483-1546) for example changed the proverbial expression in his scholarly lecture about Salomo from 1526 to a proverb by adding the formula "Man soll ..." (One should, One must, or Don't) to it: "Man sol [sic] das kind nicht mit dem bad ausgiessen" (Don't throw the baby out with the bath water). [D. Martin Luthers Werke, ed. by Paul Pietsch. Weimar: Hermann Böhlau, 1898, vol. 20, p. 160.]
- όπου βλέπουμε και την τύχη της παροιμιακής φράσης κατά τη μετάφραση του Τενεκεδένιου Ταμπούρλου του Γκίντερ Γκρας:
In the last clause the acute manipulator of traditional language Günter Grass cleverly connects the shortened proverbial expression "Das Kind mit dem Bade ausschütten" with the phrase "Sie sitzen beide in einem Bade" (they are both sitting in one bath, i.e. they both have the same concerns or problems). It might even be that a third expression, namely "Wir sitzen alle in einem Boot" (we are all in the same boat), is being alluded to as well in this pun. In any case, the experienced translator of much modern German fiction, Ralph Manheim, quite successfully translated this passage in his English rendition of The Tin Drum (1961):
Mama could be very gay, she could also be very anxious. Mama could forget quickly, yet she had a good memory. Mama would throw me out with the bath water, and yet she would share my bath.[SUP]140[/SUP]
While he does not do very well with the interconnection of the two if not three proverbial phrases which make up Grass's punning proverbial language, he certainly recognizes the first part to be the phrase under discussion here, rendering it very appropriately as "Mama would throw me out with the bath water." Predictably, the Swedish and Dutch translations also maintain the original German expression. The Swedish translator Nils Holmberg has for the final sentence of this passage "Mamma lät mig komma till sig i badkaret men kastade inte ut barnet med badvattnet,"[SUP]141[/SUP] while the Dutch translator Koos Schuur renders it as "Mijn moeder gooide mij soms met het badwater weg en kwam toch bij mij in het bad zitten."[SUP]142[/SUP] Yet the French translator Jean Amsler encountered obvious difficulty with this passage:
Maman savait être fort gaie. Maman savait être fort anxieuse. Maman savait oublier vite. Maman avait pourtant bonne mémoire. Maman me flanquait a la porte et pourtant m'admettait dans son bain.[SUP]143[/SUP]
Amsler kept the fact that Oscar's mother let him take a bath with her (i.e. she admitted him into her bath), but he replaces the German proverbial expression with the inadequate phraseological unit "flanquer quelqu'un a la porte" (i.e. to boot, throw, chuck someone out), losing the proverbial pun altogether. He also decided quite correctly that the traditional French equivalent "jeter le manche après la cognée" (to throw the helve after the hatchet) was even less fitting to translate this complex sentence. But one thing is for certain, he did not have at his disposal the new French proverb "Il ne faut pas jeter le bébé avec l'eau du bain" when he translated Grass's novel in 1961. The proverb and its proverbial form "jeter le bébé avec l'eau du bain" must therefore be relatively new in the French language, and that being the case, it might in fact be that the phrase entered into the French language not from the German but the English only sometime during the past two decades.
...
[SUP]140[/SUP] Günter Grass, The Tin Drum, translated by Ralph Manheim. London: Secker and Warburg, 1961, p. 163.
[SUP]141[/SUP] Günter Grass, Blecktrumman, translated by Nils Holmberg. Stockholm: Albert Bonniers Förlag, 1961, p. 124.
[SUP]142[/SUP] Günter Grass, De blikken trommel, translated by Koos Schuur. Amsterdam: Meulenhoff, 1964, p. 173.
[SUP]143[/SUP] Günter Grass, Le Tambour, translated by Jean Amsler. Paris: Éditions du Seuil, 1961, p. 171.
σκέφτηκα ότι μια ανακεφαλαίωση για την πορεία της στην αγγλική από το σημερινό ηλεδελτίο του Κουίνιον δεν θα έκανε κακό στο νήμα:
Don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater
From Sarah Balfour: I’m actually rather surprised you don’t already have an entry for this but what, in your expert etymological opinion, is the origin of the phrase don’t throw the baby out with the bath water? The oft-quoted origin, that babies in medieval times were bathed last, when the water was pitch-black and dirty enough that an infant could be lost in it, is complete pig-swill. Why wash a vulnerable child in dirty water?
Is that ancient bit of online folklore still doing the rounds? I thought it had been laughed out of existence at least a decade ago. The only truth in it is that the phrase is indeed ancient, though not originally English.
Like all proverbs, it contains good advice: in your haste to discard something unpleasant or undesirable, don’t throw away something worth keeping.
But Jenkins can’t play too fast and loose with the investment bank. It contributes more than half Barclays’ profits; profits it dearly needs to build up the capital reserves demanded by regulators. Shareholders want to know he won’t throw out the baby with the bath water.
Sunday Times, 10 Feb. 2013.
Sunday Times, 10 Feb. 2013.
It began life in the German language, and is still popular in the form das Kind mit dem Bade ausschütten. A comprehensive study of its origins by Wolfgang Mieder was published in 1992 [αυτή που είχα λινκάρει τότε που το συζητούσαμε και αποσπάσματά της παραθέτω αποπάνω]. He showed that the first known example is in a satire of 1512 by Thomas Murner with the title Narrenbeschwörung (Appeal to Fools). The religious writer Sebastian Franck published a book of proverbs, Spruchwörter, in 1541; he illustrated the principle by the example of sending an old horse to the knacker’s yard but omitting to take its valuable saddle and bridle off first.
Despite these early examples and its wide popularity in German down the following centuries, it appeared in English for the first time as recently as 1849. The Scottish historian Thomas Carlyle was very well informed about Germany and included a translation of it in an article in Fraser’s Magazine in December that year about the slave trade, which was published as a pamphlet four years later:
The Germans say, “you must empty-out the bathing-tub, but not the baby along with it.” Fling-out your dirty water with all zeal, and set it careering down the kennels; but try if you can keep the little child! How to abolish the abuses of slavery, and save the precious thing in it: alas, I do not pretend this is easy.
Thomas Carlyle, Occasional Discourse on the Nigger Question, 1853.
Thomas Carlyle, Occasional Discourse on the Nigger Question, 1853.
This was a clumsy translation, lacking the force of our usual form. It doesn’t seem to have had any impact on the language — at least my necessarily imperfect searches haven’t turned up another example before the twentieth century. Its popularity is almost certainly due to George Bernard Shaw, who used it many times. The first was in the introduction to his play Getting Married in 1911, though his form then was empty the baby out with the bath.
Περισσότερες λεπτομέρειες στη μελέτη του Βόλφγκανγκ Μίντερ, απ' όπου αποσπώ και άλλες αντίστοιχες αγγλικές φράσεις:
To throw the helve after the hatchet
To throw away the wheat with the chaff
Μην ξεριζώνεις και το στάρι μαζί με την ήρα
Ναι, chaff, όχι ryegrass, αλλά το παροιμιακό, βλέπετε, και throw, όχι uproot, αλλά μετά πάμε στην αποφλοίωση και περιπλέκεται.
To throw away the good with the bad
Βιντεάκι δεν ξαναβάζω· το είχα βάλει ήδη στο #2, αμέσως αμέσως.