Only Americans have the humility to call the United States an Imperfect Union. Only Americans have the audacity to promise themselves a More Perfect Union. We don't even care if "More Perfect" makes grammatical sense. But then we are Americans. Grammatical sense be damned.
Grammatical sense be damned? Not so fast.
Actually, our founding fathers had quite a debate over grammar. Some of them argued for "inalienable rights" in the early versions of our Declaration of Independence. They conceded to the majority who voted for "unalienable rights" in its final version. Interestingly, our modern dictionaries prefer "inalienable" as a proper adjective.
Inalienable or unalienable rights, however, have long been declared enough but not exercised enough. Accordingly, our American history shows a gnawing gap between rights declared and rights exercised. More importantly, this gnawing gap is narrowing. If that's not progress, I don't know what is.
Throughout history we have had only rulers, one after another. This assertion may only fall bit short when it comes to Sun Yat San who founded the Republic. Be that as it may, I am still not lured to call him our Founding Father for his Republic has been thrown to a small island long before my birth and is hanging on fighting for its very existence now.
Only Americans have the humility to call the United States an Imperfect Union. Only Americans have the audacity to promise themselves a More Perfect Union. We don't even care if "More Perfect" makes grammatical sense. But then we are Americans. Grammatical sense be damned.
Grammatical sense be damned? Not so fast.
Actually, our founding fathers had quite a debate over grammar. Some of them argued for "inalienable rights" in the early versions of our Declaration of Independence. They conceded to the majority who voted for "unalienable rights" in its final version. Interestingly, our modern dictionaries prefer "inalienable" as a proper adjective.
Inalienable or unalienable rights, however, have long been declared enough but not exercised enough. Accordingly, our American history shows a gnawing gap between rights declared and rights exercised. More importantly, this gnawing gap is narrowing. If that's not progress, I don't know what is.
Happy Father's Day!
Author: renqiulan
Google Image
https://blog.wenxuecity.com/myblog/65898/201405/6601.html
这是第一篇，接着是后3篇
Father's Day.
有个语言问题请教一下秋兰：unalienable rights 被翻译成中文为“不可剥夺的权利”。如果再把中文翻译回英文，一般为undeprivable rights. 我想问问您，unalienable 与 undeprivable 在感觉上有什么不同。这个超出我的语言能力了。
Throughout history we have had only rulers, one after another. This assertion may only fall bit short when it comes to Sun Yat San who founded the Republic. Be that as it may, I am still not lured to call him our Founding Father for his Republic has been thrown to a small island long before my birth and is hanging on fighting for its very existence now.
“标准”翻译，可能远在民国时期就被这么翻译了。我不懂英文时就读到过这个中文版。后来发现英文里面用的是unalienable，于是心里一直想知道这个词与undeprivable 的区别。也许中文理解和翻译为"不可剥夺”就是不准确的？
I always believe that General Washington is the greatest person in human history.