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So in the Viz translation of the Wolf's Rain manga, they did an odd thing with chapter titles—instead of labeling things "chapter 1," chapter 2," etc, each section was titled "grope 1," grope 2," etc.
There was a translator's note that explained this odd naming convention. Evidently, the original Japanese also used a non-standard word to label the chapters; it used a word that meant something to the effect of "to reach a point at the end of a long struggle." The translator chose to render this as "grope," I imagine, as a closest approximation to the original Japanese while remaining concise. One problem, though: your first thought upon seeing the word "grope" all by its lonesome was probably "ew is there some molester person in this manga." Alas, connotations.
It's unfortunate that "grope" has such ugly connotations, because I adore the lovely and shadowy connotations of "grope" when put in a context like "groping through the darkness for the key"—it implies blindness, struggle, indeterminateness, a question and a quiet fear. It implies grasping with hands, implies physicality, moreso than say, "struggle," which is just generalized striving. I liked how it fit with the travel/quest plotline of Wolf's Rain—with the translator's context in mind, seeing it after every chapter gave me this small sense of relief, a small outbreath. It went a long way toward implying that some big, exhausting struggle had just happened, and a big exhausting journey was still ahead.
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But the other takeaway, which is really the point of this whole ramble, is: I want to fast-forward fifty years so I can use "grep" in standard prose without sounding like a fucking blockhead, because I'm totally writing a story right now where grep would be a rather interesting and lovely word in this one sentence if it were actually in common colloquial use and had the connotations I imagine it to have, and clearly fifty years from now everyone will be using Unix and contributing to Viva La Revolution Open Source so it will totally be a colloquial term by then, am I right or what.
There was a translator's note that explained this odd naming convention. Evidently, the original Japanese also used a non-standard word to label the chapters; it used a word that meant something to the effect of "to reach a point at the end of a long struggle." The translator chose to render this as "grope," I imagine, as a closest approximation to the original Japanese while remaining concise. One problem, though: your first thought upon seeing the word "grope" all by its lonesome was probably "ew is there some molester person in this manga." Alas, connotations.
It's unfortunate that "grope" has such ugly connotations, because I adore the lovely and shadowy connotations of "grope" when put in a context like "groping through the darkness for the key"—it implies blindness, struggle, indeterminateness, a question and a quiet fear. It implies grasping with hands, implies physicality, moreso than say, "struggle," which is just generalized striving. I liked how it fit with the travel/quest plotline of Wolf's Rain—with the translator's context in mind, seeing it after every chapter gave me this small sense of relief, a small outbreath. It went a long way toward implying that some big, exhausting struggle had just happened, and a big exhausting journey was still ahead.
( Read more... )
But the other takeaway, which is really the point of this whole ramble, is: I want to fast-forward fifty years so I can use "grep" in standard prose without sounding like a fucking blockhead, because I'm totally writing a story right now where grep would be a rather interesting and lovely word in this one sentence if it were actually in common colloquial use and had the connotations I imagine it to have, and clearly fifty years from now everyone will be using Unix and contributing to Viva La Revolution Open Source so it will totally be a colloquial term by then, am I right or what.
