Talk:Tao Te Ching

Translation Etiquette and Accuracy

Michael, perhaps you are more familiar with definitive translations of foriegn texts than I, but when you assert a particular Kanji Ideogram _is_ translated thus and so I find I must disagree. There are many "ways" that can be translated...

no...pun intended.

I know it seems somehow less informative to say that a word "can be translated" or "may be" a particular English word, but I assert that that is the most accurate we are going to get. What's even worse, in translations from every other language I've encountered, there are always subtleties that become lost. Double entendre almost never work, and sometimes it's the real message that becomes obscured by the literal or "accurate" translation. --David Yamakuchi 22:13, 22 January 2008 (CST)

David: The protocol is to avoid "wiggle words", such as "can be", "may be", and to go for definitive. The way to do this is to provide definitive translations with references. This might include several variants of the tranlation, all referenced.

To whit, I am aware that "The Classic of the Way and Its Virtue" is a transliteration, not a tranlation. However, to the best of my knowledge, the tranlations of the invidual words, Tao, Te and Ching, are accurate. Go to it!... I will be at home later today, and check my own library. I suspect we can teach each other something! Blessings... --Michael J. Formica 06:41, 23 January 2008 (CST)