How bad is that translation?

So much does our perverse lust like to do the contrary of what those wish to obtain from us

translates

tant il est difficile de rient obtenir de l'homme.

Posted by John Emerson at June 24, 2008 10:04 AM

The translation doesn't correspond to that particular version of the text though. It's actually a version of this (Pensée 603 in the Gallimar edition):

Langage. Il ne faut point détourner l'esprit ailleurs sinon pour le délasser, mais dans le temps où cela est à propos; le délasser quand il le faut et non autrement, car qui délasse hors de propos, il lasse, et qui lasse hors de propos délasse, car on quitte tout là; tant la malice de la concupiscence se plaît à faire tout le contraire de ce qu'on veut obtenir de nous sans nous donner du plaisir, qui est la monnaie pour laquelle nous donnons tout ce qu'on veut.

Posted by Raminagrobis at June 24, 2008 10:33 AM

Wonderful! Now (to go from the sublime to the ridiculous) could someone please do something with this?

C'est là pourtant que se livre le sens du dire, de ce que, s'y conjuguant le nyania qui bruit des sexes en compagnie, il supplee a ce qu'entre eux, de rapport nyait pas.
--Jacques Lacan, "L'Etourdit"

I've been using it as a .sig for years, but I have only the vaguest notion of what it's about.

Posted by John Cowan at June 24, 2008 10:46 AM

Thanks, Raminagrobis—I had no idea there were different versions floating around. Live and learn (a thought I'm sure Pascal expressed far more elegantly somewhere).

Posted by language hat at June 24, 2008 12:13 PM

Now [...] could someone please do something with this?

C'est là pourtant que se livre le sens du dire, de ce que, s'y conjuguant le nyania qui bruit des sexes en compagnie, il supplee a ce qu'entre eux, de rapport nyait pas. --Jacques Lacan, "L'Etourdit"

According to translate.google.com it means:

This is, however, that engages the sense of say that, it nyania that combining the noise of the sexes in the company, it has supplée that between them, not report nyait.

A wonderful translation!

Posted by Jo Uissance at June 25, 2008 10:43 AM