Re: North Wind and Sun in Obrenje

Christian Thalmann scripsit:

> I found the expression "the more ..., the more ..." particularly
> difficult to translate.  How do you guys do it in your langs?  Lengthy
> circumscriptions, idioms or dedicated conjunctions?
As X increased, Y increased in proportion.

Jespersen, the Danish linguist and anglolinguaphile, once translated
"The more the merrier, but the fewer the better fare" into lots of
European langs, and noted how much more verbose all of them were.
Verbless sentences are pretty rare in English, but this type is
systematically verbless.  IIRC the second "the" is a survival of the
old instrumental case.

--
There is / One art                      John Cowan <jcowan@...>
No more / No less                       http://www.reutershealth.com
To do / All things                      http://www.ccil.org/~cowan
With art- / Lessness                     -- Piet Hein

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