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Spinnbruder? | ||
Tags: Meaning of words | German | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Questions About Your Target Languages |  | |
| montmorency Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4826 days ago 2371 posts - 3676 votes  Speaks: English*, German Studies: Danish, Welsh | Message 1 of 13 29 November 2013 at 8:17pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Spinnbruder - This word occurs in the novel "Der Verdacht", by Friedrich Dürrenmatt,
which I think came out in about 1951. The translator of an American edition I have renders it as "space cadet", which doesn't mean much to me. An older, also American translation renders it as "whirligig", which is also not very satisfactory. I presume that it is related to "Spinner", which has a number of translations, the most appropriate in the context probably being "crank". Any offers? 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| chokofingrz Pentaglot Senior Member England Joined 5187 days ago 241 posts - 430 votes Speaks: English*, French, Spanish, German, Italian Studies: Russian, Japanese, Catalan, Luxembourgish | Message 2 of 13 29 November 2013 at 10:41pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I do like the translation of space cadet but I guess you could also go with alternatives such as nutcase, wacko, dreamer, fruitcake... obviously you would need the full context and tone to narrow it down to the best choice.
I was looking through some synonyms on UrbanDictionary.com and a lot of them sound too psychotic. Spinnbruders or Spinners sound more like gentle, harmless, silly people to my ear. Maybe a "fruit loop" or is that too modern? A crank to me is more like a grumpy person. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| montmorency Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4826 days ago 2371 posts - 3676 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Danish, Welsh | Message 3 of 13 30 November 2013 at 12:38am | IP Logged | |||||
Well, this novel is from the early 1950s, and I don't want to make the (re-)translation too modern-sounding. I didn't mean crank in the grumpy sense (a person who is/feels cranky), but someone who has perhaps slightly eccentric or extreme views, at least when viewed by the majority. The person in the novel that this word is used for, is a down-at-heel campaigning journalist, very much gone to seed, and is seen as extreme (and perhaps a nutcase), by the conservative citizens of Bern, and he wastes his campaigning zeal nowadays on trivial things that bother him personally. ( BTW, I'm preparing a parallel text of this book, from an existing translation, but I'm taking the liberty of making small changes to the translation to make it more literal where necessary for the parallelism to work, or where I feel the translator has been far too "free", or, in this case, where I simply don't understand the word(s) used, and prefer a more familiar word which is still true to the original meaning.) 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Doitsujin Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 5318 days ago 1256 posts - 2363 votes Speaks: German*, English | Message 4 of 13 30 November 2013 at 12:59am | IP Logged | |||||
Based on the context:
Spinnbruder was most likely used for inmates of an insane asylum, because compounds with -bruder were often used to indicate a permanent state. For example: Tippelbruder = Landstreicher [=hobo] Saufbruder = Saufkumpan (=wino, drinking buddy) If I had to translate Spinnbruder, I'd pick an English synonym for Querdenker. IMHO, both space cadet and whirligig don't make much sense in this context and crank is a tad too negative for my taste. 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| montmorency Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4826 days ago 2371 posts - 3676 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Danish, Welsh | Message 5 of 13 01 December 2013 at 12:48am | IP Logged | |||||
Thanks Doitsujin: I like the idea of Querdenker, and some of the translations of that I've seen are: "unconventional thinker", "maverick" "contrarian", "lateral thinker", "awkward and intransigent thinker", and I think this character (Fortschig) is all of those things. However, in the sentence involved, actually said by the character about himself, although he is really describing what Bern people think about him: "Die Schweiz schuf mich zu einem Narren,zu einem Spinnbruder,zu einem Don Quijote,der gegen Windmühlen und Schafherden kämpft". I guess it is being used in a somewhat negative sense, even if he is using it ironically, and maybe the translations for Querdenker aren't quite negative enough. Thanks for your thoughts. I'll think it over more. (How would "eccentric" (used as a noun), sound to you?). EDIT: I'd highly recommend this book, BTW, as well as its predecessor, "Der Richter und Sein Henker", both at the level of (slightly unconventional) detective stories, and at a philosophical level. Edited by montmorency on 01 December 2013 at 12:58am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Doitsujin Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 5318 days ago 1256 posts - 2363 votes Speaks: German*, English | Message 6 of 13 01 December 2013 at 8:38am | IP Logged | |||||
I like "eccentric." It seems that Spinnbruder is a Helvetism, which was used by eccentric people in Switzerland almost like a badge of honor. I don't know whether it's still being used with this connotation in Switzerland these days, though. Maybe a Swiss HTLAL member can chime in on that.
I also like most Dürrenmatt books, if you liked "Der Verdacht," check out "Das Versprechen," which Dürrenmatt originally wrote as movie script for "Es geschah am hellichten Tag." However, the book has a different ending than the movie and Dürrenmatt actually self-ironically refers to this fact and says something along the lines "if this book were made into a movie it'd end here." BTW, the same thing also happened to adaptions of his other works, for example, his short story "Die Panne." Unfortunately, Dürrenmatt isn't as popular in Germany as he used to be, because generations of school children were forced to analyze his books and short stories to death as part of their homework assignments and therefore associated Dürrenmatt with school and never read any of his other works. 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Suzie Diglot Senior Member Belgium Joined 4227 days ago 155 posts - 226 votes Speaks: German*, English Studies: French, Dutch | Message 7 of 13 07 December 2013 at 2:45pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Just wanted to thank you, Montmorency, for bringin up this topic, and everyone for the interesting discussion.
I had signed up to improve my knowledge on foreign languages - and learnt a new word in German instead :-) 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| montmorency Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4826 days ago 2371 posts - 3676 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Danish, Welsh | Message 8 of 13 07 December 2013 at 8:25pm | IP Logged | |||||
:-) Pleased to have been of service! :-) May I be cheeky, and ask if you are one of that minority of German first-language speakers in Belgium, or did you move there originally from one of the countries where German is the only, or a major language? 1 person has voted this message useful |
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