Wednesday, May 17, 2023

word of the day: swink

word of the day: swink

context:


Swink how we may, evenings or early morn, 

Our garden crops bring only a bare return.


— lines from a poem by Fan Ch’eng-ta, translated by Gerald Bullett


definition (Collins): labor; toil


While one unfamiliar with the word can figure out a working definition from the context, I do wonder about translators who use such unfamiliar terms in the destination language. 


source:

Anthology of Chinese Literature: from early times to the fourteenth century

edited by Cyril Birch

1965. Grove Press, New York

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