Subtext
I was driving quietly in my car with the radio on to provide background music. The channel I was listening to switched to commercials, so I switched channels.
And dropped right into this incredible conversation bit.
Mind you, this is much more amusing when you consider that the discussion was in Hebrew, except for the words I’ll italic (can I use this as a verb? Italic something? Never mind) which were in English.
Putting English words into Hebrew speech during an interview will usually be done either when referring to a technical/professional term, or when wanting to preserve some exact nuances which are not there in the Hebrew equivalent. I suppose it’s the same in most cases of inserting any individual words from a foreign language (those which are not so mainstreamed they’re practically co-opted into the base language).
This mean that I’d expect the words to be used in a most exact and clear manner, right? Well, not this time.
Also worth mentioning is that the interviewee is PolSci Professor Avraham Ben-Zvi, who (among other things) published a myriad of works regarding American policy in the middle east and Israel-America relations. The quote starts in the middle of his sentence, just when I tuned in:
“… must also pay attention to the undercurrents and to the subtext of the issue.”
“Just to be certain I understand this, by subtext you mean John Kerry, right?”
“Exactly. He has a lot of support in…”
I’m very grateful I was standing waiting for a traffic light to change. If I were actually driving the results might have been disastrous.
Nice to know a possible candidate for the presidency of the US is best described as subtext…
November 2nd, 2004 at 23:42 EET | Categories: Language |
Track comments.
You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.
