Золотая природа

04:11 Dec 1, 2010 

In favor of "gold motivation".

04:00 Dec 1, 2010 

The text referred to provides a strange impression and may cast some doubts if it's really written "by a Russian native speaker" (though the name of the author is definitly Russian).

For example, a native Russian person would never write "Ел Дорадо", the common writing is "Эльдорадо"

http://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Эльдорадо

The order of words, some evident misprints and other language errors make the text look more like something originally written in English and pretty awkwardly translated to Russian afterwards ...

May be we pay too much attention to some particular impressions ? I also think, that the meaning of the disputed expression is something like “gold motivation (grounds, basis ?)” of a specific law.

03:46 Dec 1, 2010 

How can there be no "American associations," when the subhead is about an American law in an American state, stemming from the culture of the California gold rush, and its relationship to that American phenomenon, Silicon Valley?! Btw, this is not the headline of the entire chapter, but the subhead of one short section which is expressly about this 1872 law. I wouldn't normally associate Silicon Valley with the Gold Rush, either. As the article points out, they're X number of miles and a hundred years apart. But putting in a reference to the gold rush is concise and it's a totally natural, unforced way to hint, as the law's date of adoption already does, that this law was related to that earlier phase of California history. If you just say "gold inspiration" or "golden roots," motivation, etc., I think it not only sounds awkward, but might be taken as relating to modern-day gold bugs - people who are into hoarding gold against the collapse of all currencies. As far as "American audience" v. "Russian speakers" goes, I would dare to guess that the article might possibly be being translated into English by a U.S.-based translator in order to be read by an English-speaking audience.

03:22 Dec 1, 2010 

... I suspect that's why the author objected to your (asker's) suggestion as well.

03:18 Dec 1, 2010 

I'm not disputing it (the law) took place in the Gold Rush times. What I don't agree with is that subheading refers to it. To me at least, as a native Russian speaker, what it said was that the law was based on gold - not on/in/due to Gold Rush.

You should understand that, unlike American audience, Russian speakers don't associate Silicon Valley with Gold Rush. Not geographically anyway. So what the author did here was to start with a pretty much neutral, common expression and THEN, inside the chapter, twisted it into your meaning. When you go ahead and put the words "Gold Rush" into the header you change it signigicantly - the words "Золотая природа" do not immediatly associate themselves with the Gold Rush, not in the original.

Because of that I believe it would be wrong to use your American associations and add them where there were none.