History Woolseyism / Literature

* ''Literature/HonorHarrington'': David Weber's series's Polish translation, where the translator "localized" the StateSec by naming it after [[PeoplesRepublicOfTyranny the Communist secret police]]. StateSec gets scary only when you abbreviate it and then make a connection to ThoseWackyNazis, but this way the reader knows from the very beginning they're up to no good (and referring to people "citizen" is not as scary as [[DirtyCommunists "comrade"]]). Unless you're Russian, in which case ''grazdanin'' ("citizen") is ''scarier'': it's how the cops (''militsiya'') address a suspected criminal. Of course, [[CaptainObvious the Poles aren't Russians]] , which is why the change of terminology was appropriate for the Polish translation and not the Russian one.

* In Russian, голубой (goluboy) is a word for "light blue" that's also used as a slang term for "homosexual". At least one Russian translation of ''Literature/GoodOmens'' took the passage describing Aziraphale as [[MistakenForGay appearing to be]] "gayer than a treeful of monkeys on nitrous oxide" and translated it as "so light blue, any tropical island would hire him to illuminate the sky in the middle of tourist season."

** A rather controversial one is the transformation of ''Malakoi'' (soft) to ''effeminate'' (KJV) to ''homosexual offenders'' (Living Bible). Whether this counts as Woolseyism or BlindIdiotTranslation--or worse, TranslationWithAnAgenda--is a matter [[RuleOfCautiousEditingJudgment best not discussed here]].

* ''Literature/HardBoiledWonderlandAndTheEndOfTheWorld'' uses two UsefulNotes/JapanesePronouns to give a different narrative, given the rather unique events of the book. However, Japanese pronouns don't translate over to english, and the translator took a different option that gets the point across, and gives a subtle {{Foreshadowing}}. The narrator makes the "End of the world" translations occur in the present-tense, as opposed to the past-tense narrative of the "Hard-Boiled wonderland" sections.

** Another English example caused by language drift: ''dikaiosuné'' is translated in the KJV and many later versions as "righteousness", but is usually translated into modern English as "justice". In the 16th century the two words meant the same thing; in modern English they have diverged significantly, with "righteous" meaning something more like "smug" in common usage.

** The Swedish translations are regularly very good, replacing English language-specific puns with equivalent ones and changing references to Anglo-Saxon culture, etc. to Swedish ones. One highlight: the movie business troll in ''Moving Pictures'' is named Rock, a reference to Rock Hudson. The Swedish translation changed his name to [[Creator/{{IngmarBergman}} Bergman]]. (''Berg'' being Swedish for "mountain", and [[ThemeNaming all Discworld trolls having rock-related names]].)

*** In the Norwegian version, it was translated as "Kan jeg få se på ur-anusen din, Lavendel?" (Can I take a look your ancient anus, Lavender.

* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lin_Shu Lin Shu]], who translated many European novels--''LaDameAuxCamelias'', ''Literature/DavidCopperfield'', ''Literature/UncleTomsCabin'', ''JoanHaste'' and ''Literature/RobinsonCrusoe'', to name a few--''without knowing any European language''. The way he succeeded in translated these novels (by WordOfGod) practically enforced this trope:

** The Parable of the Talents acquires a highly appropriate pun in English, as the story of three servants who must use the ''talents'' (unit of currency) their master gave them wisely instead of letting them go to waste illustrates how people are supposed to use the ''talents'' (skills and abilities) God has given them wisely instead of letting them go to waste.
*** It's the other way round. It was that parable in the KJV which codified the "skill" meaning of "talent".

** The "[[UranusIsShowing can I have a look at Uranus too, Lavender?]]" joke from ''Goblet of Fire'' was changed in many translations since a lot of languages lack the pun from Uranus's name. The French translation changes it to the moon - in French it has the same connotations as "mooning" in English. The Danish translation changes it to Lavender talking about her ending got an unknown aspect, to which Ron replies "can I see an aspect of your end too?" - [[DontExplainTheJoke meaning Lavender's ass of course]]. The Polish translation was even better where Professor Trelawney describes Uranus as "an important celestial body". Ron asks if he can have a look at Lavender's body too. The first Italian translation just ignored the joke and translated the line literally, while the 2013 rerelease went with the "celestial body" joke as the Polish version.

* ''Literature/HardBoiledWonderlandAndTheEndOfTheWorld'' uses two JapanesePronouns to give a different narrative, given the rather unique events of the book. However, JapanesePronouns don't translate over to english, and the translator took a different option that gets the point across, and gives a subtle {{Foreshadowing}}. The narrator makes the "End of the world" translations occur in the present-tense, as opposed to the past-tense narrative of the "Hard-Boiled wonderland" sections.

* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lin_Shu Lin Shu]], who translated many European novels--''LaDameAuxCamelias'', ''Literature/DavidCopperfield'', ''UncleTomsCabin'', ''JoanHaste'' and ''Literature/RobinsonCrusoe'', to name a few--''without knowing any European language''. The way he succeeded in translated these novels (by WordOfGod) practically enforced this trope:

* ''HardBoiledWonderlandAndTheEndOfTheWorld'' uses two JapanesePronouns to give a different narrative, given the rather unique events of the book. However, JapanesePronouns don't translate over to english, and the translator took a different option that gets the point across, and gives a subtle {{Foreshadowing}}. The narrator makes the "End of the world" translations occur in the present-tense, as opposed to the past-tense narrative of the "Hard-Boiled wonderland" sections.

* A similar effort to that of Tolkien was that used by Richard Adams in ''WatershipDown'' which presented the names of characters and other vocabulary as Woolseyism translations of the "Lapine" language.

** There were two main committees at the time of the Terror, the Committee of Public Safety actually being less important than the one headed by Robespierre, the Committee of Public Welfare.

* Similar to the biblical examples above, most Muslim scholars will say that this is the only way that the Literature/{{Quran}} can be translated, as there is too much meaning riding on the phrasing of the original Arabic as to render the text "untranslatable" in the traditional sense. The most popular English translation, Abdullah Yusuf Ali's, takes this approach.

** Ironically, plenty of subtle meaning is actually lost in translating ''Literature/TheBible'' 's ancient languages according to overall meaning instead of word-for-word. A well-known example is {{Jesus}}'s face-off with the Pharisees in John 8, where they ask Jesus how He could possibly think He is older than Moses. The Worldwide English (New Testament) translation of the response goes: ''Jesus answered, "I tell you the truth. I already was before Abraham was born."'', which while accurate in conveying the blunt meaning, misses out on the (intentional) back-reference of other translations. For example, the New International Version translation: ''"I tell you the truth," Jesus answered, "before Abraham was born, '''I am'''."'' This is a reference to the name of {{God}} (''God said to Moses, "'''I am''' who am."'' - Exodus 3:14), and thus signified that Jesus considered Himself God... Which explains why the Pharisees immediately flew into a rage and tried to stone Jesus (for blasphemy) when they had earlier just put up with being called the children of the devil with far less outrage.

* There is no "th" sound in Russian, so the Russian translation turns Slytherin into Slizerin. "Sliz'" means "slime".

** The Swedish translation of the goblins is also quite genius. Their Swedish name Svartalfer (black elves) does not only reference their relatedness with the house elves ("husalfer" in Swedish), but is also the name of a mythological creature from norse mythology. The mythological creature just so happens to live underground, be shorter than the average human, and have a habit of smithing various items imbedded with magic.

** While on the subject of Tolkien, his own translation of ''Literature/SirGawainAndTheGreenKnight'' is '''masterful'''. Granted he was "only" translating from (Old) English to (Modern) English, but he did it while also changing from the old convention of 'rhyme' (the beginnings of words should sound the same) to the new convention (the '''ends''' of words should sound the same). And he usually managed to keep the alliteration too, meaning his version rhymes by both the original author's standards and our modern day ones.

* Played with in the Khaavren novels of {{Dragaera}}, when the author makes up an equivalent Woolseyism ''in Dragaeran'' for a common English saying. Specifically, the local saying that "when you make assumptions, you are thinking like a fish" is allegedly derived from how the native language's words for "fish" and "think", when combined, sound much like their word for "assumption". The RealLife English equivalent is "when you assume, you make an ass out of you and me".

** The "[[UranusIsShowing can I have a look at Uranus too, Lavender?]]" joke from ''Goblet of Fire'' was changed in many translations since a lot of languages lack the pun from Uranus's name. The French translation changes it to the moon - in French it has the same connotations as "mooning" in English. The Danish translation changes it to Lavender talking about her ending got an unknown aspect, to which Ron replies "can I see an aspect of your end too?" - [[DontExplainTheJoke meaning Lavender's ass of course]]. The Polish translation was even better where Professor Trelawney describes Uranus as "an important celestial body". Ron asks if he can have a look at Lavender's body too.

* The Spanish translation of ''ASeriesOfUnfortunateEvents'' changed renamed Esmé Squalor to Esmé Miseria.