Author: Mike Hood
Date: 10:33:40 12/12/02
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On December 12, 2002 at 08:08:59, Rolf Tueschen wrote: >On December 12, 2002 at 07:25:46, Mike Hood wrote: > >>Just a little bit of information for those who don't speak German. The new free >>engine for the Chessbase interface is called "List". This is the German >>translation of "crafty" as a noun, ie "craftiness" (is that a word?) > >No, it's better trick, ruse, cunning, trickery. > >But if I search for a translation of crafty I get (if I re-translate the then >German terms): > >(also the above) cunning, fraudulent (in a jur. sense) > >So let me explain the main difference in the meaning of (in German): > >listig / List (as noun) and > >hinterlistig / Hinterlist > >The basic difference in crafty to "List" is the 'cheating' intention! At least >in the German translation! > >To be 'listig' just means as I said "tricky", but tricky doesn't imply cheating >as such. So if you use the word 'hinterlistig' in German then it's crystal clear >that you want to cheat or betray someone. I don't know enough English to sense >the perhaps different versions of 'cunning'. Perhaps you have that double sense >too. Of course in German, if you say 'listig' it is not very far away to the >assumption that you want to betray. "crafty" and "cunning" are very close words in the English language. Both of them carry a hint of betrayal, but neither are as strong as the German word "hinterlistig". I would translate both "cunning" and "crafty" as "listig", unless the context showed that "hinterlistig" is appropriate. Even though I was born in England, I find that the German language has subtleties of meaning that are difficult to express in English. The famous example is the totally untranslatable word "gemütlich", but there are other examples. The following joke is actually a true conversation I overheard between a German and an English university professor in Berlin: The German: "How do you say Selbstkenntnis in English?" The Englishman: "We don't have it. We don't want it either".
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