 |
 | Home | Contact Us | FAQ | Search & Site Map | Link to Us |
 | Sign In | Join | Other 45 Sites in Network |
| HomeDiscussion GroupsEnglish UsageBritish EnglishESL Teaching Learnglish.com Contact UsLink To UsSearch & Site Map |
Discussion Groups / British English / October 2005Help me understand this phrase, please.
Hi everybody! I'm translating a novel, based on a true story during US Civil War, about a woman who, rather than let someone plow over the field where they had been buried, decided to bury more than 1,000 soldiers in her own backyard. She's also sheltering dozen of orphans and one, in particular, has the bad habit to follow her into the cemetery. She doesn't want him to and tries her best to be persuasive. And at this point, in the novel, come this phrase: «She'd have made it so that ne never went into any cemetery again and never heard of or saw a dead person the rest of his life. She'd done plenty of time with the dead, more than enough time to **exempt the people she loved from morbidity**». Can anybody please explain me the phrase in ** **? What's morbidity, in this case? Thank you very much for your help! Claudia > «She'd have made it so that ne never went into any cemetery again and > never heard of or saw a dead person the rest of his life. She'd done > plenty of time with the dead, more than enough time to **exempt the > people she loved from morbidity**». Can anybody please explain me the > phrase in ** **? What's morbidity, in this case? Morbidity means fascination with death in this case. You've got to look at this in the context of the 19th Century (I'd have said 'Victorian' except it's USA) obsession with death, funerals and mourning. Children would be taken to see a dead neighbour or family member before the funeral, the funeral itself would be as elaborate as the family could afford, they competed to erect ever more elaborate memorials, and official mourning periods were extended- to years in some cases. So I think this woman feels that she has perhaps overdone the cult of death, and wishes to bring her charges up to be free of it. Paul Burke >> «She'd have made it so that ne never went into any cemetery again and >> never heard of or saw a dead person the rest of his life. She'd done [quoted text clipped - 14 lines] > > Paul Burke Thank you very much, Paul, now it does make sense. Claudia At 16:34:59 on Mon, 10 Oct 2005, Paul Burke <paul@scazon.com> wrote in <3qvgphFgmpp6U1@individual.net>: >> ‹She'd have made it so that ne never went into any cemetery again >>and never heard of or saw a dead person the rest of his life. She'd [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] > >Morbidity means fascination with death in this case. I'm not so sure - I think it just means "death" in this case. It's used in this sense in, for instance, the National Morbidity Statistics - stats on the causes of death. No fascination there.  SignatureMolly Mockford They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety - Benjamin Franklin (My Reply-To address *is* valid, though may not remain so for ever.) > I'm not so sure - I think it just means "death" in this case. It's used > in this sense in, for instance, the National Morbidity Statistics - > stats on the causes of death. I took the phrase as in "to take a morbid interest in". This to me describes (what I took as ) the unhealthy interest that the orphan had for the cemetery; however, I agree that the writing could be more subtle, and include overtones about expetion from death itself. What's the title of the book (in English)? I get the feeling that the woman is beginning to realise that it's HER fascination with death that is at the heart of the problem. A detail: were the bodies lying unburied, or was she exhuming them for reburial? Paul Burke >> I'm not so sure - I think it just means "death" in this case. It's >> used in this sense in, for instance, the National Morbidity Statistics [quoted text clipped - 11 lines] > > Paul Burke The title is "The Widow of the South" by Robert Hicks. My quote is taken from the prologue, which is set in 1894. Please, read this: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0446500127/103-6898971-3624660?v=glance (It's surely a better and clearer English than mine, I'm afraid). IMHO, the author means she has spent so much time with death (her daughters died young, then came the war with thousands of young boys dead) she now hopes her loved ones to be spared her same burden (= she doesn't want her loved ones to even see or hear of a dead person, as it's written in the previous sentence). But, to me (and I'm Italian, not English nor American), the word morbidity also suggests some kind of fascination overtones... This is way I asked your (the NG's) help. =) Here is the quote again: «She'd have made it so that ne never went into any cemetery again and never heard of or saw a dead person the rest of his life. She'd done plenty of time with the dead, more than enough time to **exempt the people she loved from morbidity**». > At 16:34:59 on Mon, 10 Oct 2005, Paul Burke <paul@scazon.com> wrote in > <3qvgphFgmpp6U1@individual.net>: [quoted text clipped - 10 lines] > in this sense in, for instance, the National Morbidity Statistics - > stats on the causes of death. No fascination there. Thanks Molly, and good morning! (Here in Milan it's 9:04 am) I don't think that, in this case, morbidity = fascination with death neither. If fact, in anotoher NG, I got this suggestion (which is very close to my first guess). What do you think about it? Here it is: I'd imagine that she was hoping the people she loved would not have to be as concerned with death and the dead as she had been forced to be. In other words, she'd spent so more than her share of time preoccupied with death and the dead, so she hoped that her loved ones would be spared this burden. I used the idea of "be spared this burden" in Italian, and got a quite good translation. =) Thank you very much for you answer and explaination. Claudia |
Reply to this Message |
 Sign In
 Join
 My Latest Posts My Monitored Threads My Blog My Photo Gallery My Profile My Homepage Start New Thread Enable EMail Alerts Rate this Thread
|
©2012 Advenet LLC Privacy Policy - Terms of Use
This website includes both content owned or controlled by Advenet as well as content owned or controlled by third parties.