What's the Polish for 'reasonable' (as in 'reasonable wear and tear')?
What's the Polish for 'discretion' (as in 'parcels may be carried at the conductor's discretion')?
My theory is that gaps between languages where a word cannot be directly translated highlight the significant differences between the cultures - and the root of those cultural differences could be genetic as well as historic.
Righto, let's get stuck in.
Guidelines: Getionary offers us
- Wytyczne
- Wskazówki
- Zasady
- Zalecenia
Wytyczne seems to be closest (indeed Getionary champions this one). But it does not give that same sense of liberty to work within a certain set of outer limits that the word 'guidelines' carries. Wytyczne is more what I'm told to do rather than being allowed me to use my own initiative, working around the guidelines.
Reasonable. A favourite of mine. A lawyer once told me "Never include the English word 'reasonable' in a contract that's to be translated into Polish". Let's see what Getionary offers:
- Rozsądny
- Należyty
- Uzasadniony
- Zasadny
To avoid grey areas. The language of law and regulation has to be black and white. Because if you give an inch, they'll take a mile. Unless it's nailed down, it will be abused. [Nailing it down - it's so important.] We are, of course, talking about social trust. That wonderful word 'reasonable' assumes a society of reasonable citizens, dealing reasonably with one another.
The British system traditionally has worked with the opposite, bottom-up, premise. That common sense, give-and-take on both sides will prevail. No top-down control-freakery: this is the letter of the law and that's it.
Stupid, arbitrary decisions erode respect for the state and its institutions.
It all makes me wonder whether the nature of a country's legal system is a competitiveness issue. The law of the land is couched in the language of the land. If that language does not convey trust, how can the law?
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6 comments:
I really enjoyed this post and it inspired my own cogitations on the subject of 'guidelines', 'reasonable' and 'discretion' on the Polish2English blog.
http://wp.me/pMy1B-7G
The question about why there is no Polish equivalent to 'reasonable' might be turned round to ask why such a vague and indeterminate word exists in 'legal' English. What is reasonable to one person may be quite unreasonable to another.
In English common law, there are various ways of litigating on reasonable - the basic requirement to act reasonably, breach of trust, etc. However, the basic principle for English legal documents should be that 'reasonable' is unlitigable unless there is a clear definition of how it is to be judged and by whom - see Polish2English for a short Polish equivalent using the 'normal use' concept. Going to court to judge on the basis of common law would be reserved for complete breakdown on both sides - litigation based on hate, not resolution. There are many English lawyers who would consider the use of 'reasonable wear and tear' in a legal document to be meaningless and would immediately want it to be rewritten. Company lawyers are normally less worried about such legal niceties as they know their customers have no expectation of court action and that the document is intended for practical guidelines in business operations ie it doesn't matter if the wording is meaningful or not. (Actually, I vaguely recall that there was a court judgement setting down principles on how something like 'reasonable wear and tear' should be judged. In which case, the problems above have been circumvented. I remember several hours of legal discussion on 'reasonable' belief', however.)
For a legal system that is not based on common law or, for something like reasonable belief, uses a jury system, a much clearer definition is required in legal documents. 'Law, but tough law' sets its own requirements when 'justice' is not a deciding factor.
Strangely enough, your statements remind me of many legal arguments in translating EU law into English law. Most English lawyers considered EU law to be too indefinite ("common sense, give-and-take on both sides will prevail", as you put it) and impossible to describe in English legal language ("this is the letter of the law and that's it"). Does this mean the EU is a prime example of a society based on "social trust, assuming a society of reasonable citizens, dealing reasonably with one another"? If so, does the Polish habit of implementing EU law by directly quoting the words of Directives, while English law tries, and gets criticised by the EU Commission for, translating it into the more rigid English style, mean that Polish law is more based on social trust.
at one's discretion = według czyjegoś uznania
What's the Polish for 'wear and tear'? Normalne zużycie?
seeing it eye to eye with you
Have to say I disagree slightly.
For ‘guidelines’, as with most things in Poland, it all depends on context. You wouldn’t say for general guidelines ‘według ogólnych wskazówek’ or ‘ogólnych wytycznych’ but you would say ‘według ogólnych zasad’.
For ‘reasonable use’ you might chose ‘sensownego’, ‘bezprzesadnego’ or ‘umiarkowanego’, again depends on context. Reasonable wear and tear is more difficult and I like Polish2English blog's compromise, but would change it slightly to ‘zuzycie w ramach normalnego użytkowania’ which gives some leaway with regard to perception of the frequency of use.
As for 'at one's own, his, her, your, discretion, that’s more straight forward as studentSGH has clearly demonstrated.
Regards,
a
'Discretion' - uznanie, seems straightforward. Now dismantle that word to its etymological root. Znać = to know. That tricky prefix u; 'at', 'of', 'in'; uznanie. It's like'the ofknowing'. It does not convey that same sense as 'discretion' to me.
Guidelines - wytyczne is not a 100% match like mapa drogowa is a 100% match for 'road map'.
@Bartek - so what's 'reasonable'? Normalne?
@Steve - this post was sparked by my outrage at Scatt's treatment at the WSC. If there were guidelines rather than cast-iron rules, if Polish bureaucrats could exercise discretion, if they were expected to behave in a reasonable manner, life in Poland would be a whole lot better. So I disagree about the Polish language being better suited to engendering social trust.
Among the words given for unreasobable in one translation engine are:
1 niemożliwy
2 nierozsądny
3 nierozumny
4 nieracjonalny
5 nadmierny
6 horrendalny
7 wygórowany
and for reasonable
1 rozsądny
2 sensowny
3 godziwy
4 umiarkowany
5 uzasadniony
What can I say apart from (and as you know anyway), it's all down to context. Where in English the single word may carry a myriad of meanings depending on context, in Polish a different word is required to provide the same sense (It happens the other way round also if not as often e.g. rozliczać, see http://student-sgh.blogspot.com/2010/01/rozliczac-jego-mac.html :))
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