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16:19 Nov 29, 2011
This question was closed without grading. Reason: Other
English to English translations [PRO] Government / Politics / Political essay
English term or phrase:no more death tolls
Hello everybody,
I'm proofreading the Acknowledgements page of an essay. The author is an Italian native speaker.
Do you think the following sentence is correct? The first part sounds very Italian to me:
We hope that “no more death tolls” does not remain wishful thinking and an unlikely thought, but instead becomes reality in the fascinating and controversial Mediterranean area.
Thanks for giving us an explanation for closing the question, Gabriella. This does happen, and when it does, it often improves the final document. Have a good weekend.
*2 The writer is making a very broad but very vague statement about the Mediterranean world. I'd try to get him/her to qualify it a bit (sometimes you win, sometimes you lose on this kind of point). Then I'd try to pull some nouns out of the author. "Fascinating and controversial" are not only too vague for something as large as the Mediterranean, as Charles points out, they are difficult for the reader to interpret. I'd ask the author WHAT is so controversial and fascinating about the Mediterranean: the political climate/mentality? the "real politik" being played out? national or EU policy? Perhaps by asking these questions you can figure out how to express the author's thoughts in a meaningful way. Good luck!
A few things occur to me: either edit the sentence down to the essence to something like: We hope, although it is unlikely given present conditions (policies? trends?) in the Mediterranean, that this killing/ appalling loss of life will stop. (Do a reverse translation of this and ask the author if it was what he really wanted to say) or try to twist the rhetoric into intelligible form with something like: We hope that the desire/call for* and end to the killing/appalling loss of life will become a reality, however difficult that might be to expect in this part of the Mediterranean world.* These are the two points that worry me as a copyeditor. *1 One could present desire/call for to the client as a substitute for the wishful thinking, saying that such a move would do a lot for the syntax of the sentence.
I understand "no more death tolls" to mean, in effect, no more deaths by violence. Or to pick up Martín's suggestion: no more killing. It's not the same thing. We can hardly expect to put an end to death, but can hope for an end to killing.
I have no idea whether the author intended this meaning, I expect not, but the original sense of "toll" is the ringing of a bell to mark someone's death. When someone died in a parish, the bell of the parish church was rung. A toll is strictly a single ring of a bell. So in this sense "death tolls" is quite correct. By extension "toll" has come to mean the total number of deaths resulting from a violent event (accident, natural disaster or conflict).
On the fascinating and controversial Mediterranean: I think "fascinating" sounds reasonably natural, but "controversial" does sound odd. One problem is that to say something is "controversial" really means that people argue and disagree about it, whereas I have a hunch (my Italian is not good enough for me to be sure) that "controversa" means riven by controversy: in other words, the Mediterrenean is not an area people disagree about but an area in which people (to say the least) disagree with each other, if you follow me. "Controversial" is not the right word for that in English; something like "troubled" might be better.
I agree with you, Jenni. The whole sentence sounds dreadful. What about this?:
We hope that the desire to stop deaths will go beyond wishful thinking to become a reality in such a fascinating, but controversial area.
I rather agree with Martin. There are all kinds of ways to express what is happening in these countries "the appalling loss of life", for example. I also think the author needs to explain what he wanted to say with "in the fascinating and controversial Mediterranean area". That ending just doesn't hold up in English.
I agree that this sentence needs a lot of work. I don't see how the plural 'tolls' can be correct here, for a start. We're talking about the number of deaths in one particular conflict - however many deaths there are, there's only one death toll.
Would "no more deaths" (or "no more killing") not sound better than "no more death tolls"? After all, the death tolls are a consequence of the deaths...
It is no quote. I've already talked with the author. Undue use of quotation marks is typical for Italian. The author just wants to say he hopes there will be no more death tolls in that region. That's all.
Stephanie has done a nice editing job on the phrase that follows, but I would suggest querying the author or client on the point in question. People make undue use of quotation marks and this is probably not a real quote. However, it could be, and I personally would verify whether it was before making any interpretation or changes. That said, it does not sit well in the sentence and the problem should be addressed.
We owe a special mention to all those who – believing in democracy, freedom and justice as invaluable values – lost their lives during the popular revolts in Middle East and North Africa since December 2010. We hope that “no more death tolls” does not remain wishful thinking and an unlikely thought, but instead becomes reality in the fascinating and controversial Mediterranean area.
The author wants to say that he hopes "no more death tolls" will no longer be a mere slogan, but a reality.
One would need much more context to make a reasoned comment.
Automatic update in 00:
Answers
21 mins confidence:
Eliminate redundancy to make it more English
Explanation: Seems to me you understand "no more death tolls" so I won't address that...(other than to say there is nothing wrong with it really).
The sentence as a whole doesn't sound quite right because it has a redundant element "...and an unlikely thought" which has already been stated with "wishful thinking" - a very neat and concise English collocation.
If you want the sentence to sound more English, just eliminate the redundancy:
"We hope that “no more death tolls” does not remain wishful thinking, but instead becomes reality in the fascinating and controversial Mediterranean area."
-------------------------------------------------- Note added at 22 mins (2011-11-29 16:42:10 GMT) --------------------------------------------------
- English as a language, is not very fond of repetition of redundancy, so I think this is the root of the problem.
-------------------------------------------------- Note added at 22 mins (2011-11-29 16:42:26 GMT) --------------------------------------------------
Typo: of = or
-------------------------------------------------- Note added at 23 mins (2011-11-29 16:43:03 GMT) --------------------------------------------------
repetition OR redundancy
Ty Kendall United Kingdom Local time: 02:07 Works in field Native speaker of: English
Explanation: The sentence is certainly awkward English with 2 phrases that stick out in my reading.
The more usual English phrases would be:
is not merely wishful thinking
and
and an unlikely idea
or an idea that will never come to fruition
or something like that.
-------------------------------------------------- Note added at 35 mins (2011-11-29 16:55:19 GMT) --------------------------------------------------
We hope that “no more death tolls” becomes reality in the fascinating and controversial Mediterranean area and does not remain wishful thinking.
I agree with Ty that you could remove the restatement of "unlikely idea," unless the author wants the same sort of thing said twice for great emphasis. I think it would also be more natural in English to be more direct, thus my suggested change in the sentence structure.
Stephanie Ezrol United States Local time: 21:07 Native speaker of: English PRO pts in category: 20
We hope that an end to high death tolls will go beyond wishful thinking*
Explanation: to become a reality... (in the "fascinating and controversial Mediterranean area" frankly sounds dreadful, I would lobby with the author to adjust this, at least in terms of syntaxis). Since death always takes its toll, even when one person dies, I have added "high" to give the phrase a bit more sense.
Jenni Lukac Local time: 03:07 Specializes in field Native speaker of: English PRO pts in category: 40
1 hr confidence:
We hope the elimination of death tolls is not just wishful thinking
Explanation: an alternative to using the quotation marks.
LisaV20 United States Local time: 03:07 Specializes in field Native speaker of: English
The translation workplace 
peer agreement (net): +1
