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Discussion Groups / English Usage / May 2009Turn grey?
From nl.taal: Dutch has the expression 'grijsdraaien', (lit. trans. [to] turn grey) applied literally to 78 rpm grammophone records, and more or less figuratively to 45 rpm singles and 33 rpm LPs. The meaning is of course turning it very often, ad nauseam perhaps, untill worn out. A poster found the same expression, applied figuratively to CDs, in a translation from an English book. What could the original English expression have been? Jan > From nl.taal: > [quoted text clipped - 10 lines] > > Jan To "turn grey' is a common English idiom, but I haven't heard it applied to CDs. It's usually used about people - an exhausted mother might accuse an annoying child of turning her hair grey. Cheryl In message <4a0d7d9e$1@news.bnb-lp.com>, Cheryl <cperkins@mun.ca> writes >> From nl.taal: >> Dutch has the expression 'grijsdraaien', (lit. trans. [to] turn [quoted text clipped - 11 lines] >applied to CDs. It's usually used about people - an exhausted mother >might accuse an annoying child of turning her hair grey. Oldies? Antiques? But, thinking about it, some well-worn records do lose their pristine black sheen, and become a dull, dark grey. Somewhere, I still have a couple of hard plastic 78s, which were well 'chewed up' by a heavy pickup. That's all I can think of.  SignatureIan On May 15, 10:39 am, Ian Jackson <ianREMOVETHISjack...@g3ohx.demon.co.uk> wrote: > In message <4a0d7d9...@news.bnb-lp.com>, Cheryl <cperk...@mun.ca> writes > [quoted text clipped - 24 lines] > > - Show quoted text - Those 78s may well be shellac instead of the more recent vinyl that 33s and 45s used. 78s were not all black; special recordings and childen's records were sometimes yellow or red. Sounds like an adaptation of the old folks' hair "going gray." > From nl.taal: > [quoted text clipped - 8 lines] > > What could the original English expression have been? "Wear out", the phrase you used above? You know that we refer to "playing" records, not "turning" them (in my experience), and you used "turning it very often" just to explain the Dutch expression? -- Jerry Friedman is very disappointed that Firefox's spearchucker flags "nauseam" (and "nauseum" too, at least). > > From nl.taal: > > [quoted text clipped - 10 lines] > > "Wear out", the phrase you used above? Yes, so worn out that it is immediately noticable from the greyish (instead of black) appearance of the record. > You know that we refer to "playing" records, not "turning" them (in my > experience), and you used "turning it very often" just to explain the > Dutch expression? Yes, I know. Dutch has 'draaien' (to turn) as a synoniem for '(af)spelen'. (to play) It was popularised by one of the first Dutch DJs ever: Joost den Draaier. (Joost the Turner) English has the turning of a record only in the turntable that may be used to play it. OTOH 'turnen' does exist as an anglicism in Dutch but not in relation to record playing. (in particular in 'omturnen', to make someone change his mind) Anyway, from the responses so far it seems obvious that the 'grijsdraaien' of CDs is probably a translator's liberty, without correspondence in the English original. Jan > You know that we refer to "playing" records, not "turning" them (in > my experience), Except for disc jockeys, who would sometimes "spin" them. SignatureEvan Kirshenbaum +------------------------------------ HP Laboratories |Politicians are like compost--they 1501 Page Mill Road, 1U, MS 1141 |should be turned often or they start Palo Alto, CA 94304 |to smell bad. kirshenbaum@hpl.hp.com (650)857-7572 http://www.kirshenbaum.net/ >From nl.taal: > [quoted text clipped - 8 lines] > >What could the original English expression have been? What comes to mind is, "play the grooves off" (i.e., figuratively wear the record smooth), but even in the pre-CD days, it wasn't an expression I heard very often. (And then there's the matter that, with only a couple exceptions, an LP or a 45 only has one groove per side, so wearing out a favourite song on a single should be "playing the groove off" unless you wear out the B side as well, but that only really matters if someone tries to catch you with the old riddle that tries to trick you into multiplying revolutions by playing time to come up with the wrong number of gooves.) SignatureD. Glenn Arthur Jr./The Human Vibrator, dglenn@panix.com Due to hand/wrist problems my newsreading time varies so I may miss followups. "Being a _man_ means knowing that one has a choice not to act like a 'man'." http://www.panix.com/~dglenn/ http://dglenn.livejournal.com > >From nl.taal: > > [quoted text clipped - 10 lines] > > What comes to mind is, "play the grooves off" That's a good one. > (i.e., figuratively wear the record smooth), > but even in the pre-CD days, it wasn't > an expression I heard very often. Still, over 200 googles. And sure enough, the very first hit on "play the grooves off" +cd tries apply it figuratively. Jan PS The Dutch translation said: "Thema's uit Jenufa bleven me twee maanden lang door het hoofd spelen, en kwamen zelfs in mijn dromen voor, versterkt doordat ik de cd's van de opera had gekocht en grijsgedraaid." Oliver Sacks - Musicofilia, verhalen over muziek en het brein (Meulenhoff; 2007). Vertaald door Han Visserman. I don't have access to the original. (themes from Jenufa continued playing through my head, even in my dreams, reinforced by having bought the CDs and played it many times) |
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