Newsgroup: it.cultura.linguistica.inglese
Titolo: zombie

Hello everyone!
Ricordate la celebre canzone dei Cramberries? C'è un verso nella prima
strofa che io non sono mai riuscito a capire bene.
 Another head hangs lowly
 Child is slowly taken
 And the violence caused such silence
 Who are we mistaken
E' il quarto verso che mi lascia perplesso. Che cosa vorrebbe dire
precisamente?
Max
--
"... it really gives one hope for the future of all lifekind. 
Except of course that we know it hasn't got one..."

precisamente?
I like this song, so I have listened carefully to it. The following comments are
only my personal interpretation of the lyrics and are not based on any
information other than the CD and the knowledge that the musicians are Irish. I
apologize for answering in English but ... well, anyway, here it is.
I believe the song is about the continued violence that has plagued Northern
Ireland since the Easter Uprising (identified as 1916 in the song), an important
event for supporters of Irish independence. It appears to be an anti-violence
song, a perspective supported by the cover notes for this song which include the
following comment: "man's inhumanity to man and worse still to child." (Also in
other songs this songwriter has expressed a prejudice toward the lives of
children over that of other innocents.)
The first two verses appear to refer to the gravitation of Irish youth toward
joining the mindset of violence and hatred (child is slowly taken) perhaps
through some tragic event or conditions (another head hangs lowly). The third
verse appears to refer to the chill placed on everyday life by the state of
violence. The fourth verse, which has an odd construction even for a song lyric,
may be easier to understand if you read several verses later in the song.
Another mother's breakin'
heart is taken over.
When the violence causes silence
we must be mistaken.
This additional information suggests that the verse "who are we mistaken"
probably should have a comma between "we" and "mistaken." It appears to say that
"we" are "mistaken" if our approach to solving this situation is causing the
current results, likened to a silent zombie-like existence in a war zone (the
song was written in 1993).
Other verses in the song support this interpretation, but it is just a song, so
I must admit that I'm a little embarrassed to have offered any interpretation.
On the other hand, last night, I went to see a performance in San Francisco by a
company of actors from Rome performing Boccaccio's Decameron. I would feel
comfortable talking about my interpretation of that work. Unfortunately, it was
performed entirely in Italian so I couldn't understand more than an occassional
word or phrase and haven't the slightest idea how to interpret it.
You very well may ask, "what was I thinking?" and "when will my skills ever
improve enough to understand spoken Italian?" Sigh! Probably not until I figure
out how to spend a year working in Italy.
Ciao,
Ron
USA

Max
Ma da quando vogliono dire qualcosa precisamente i lirici 
delle canzoni pop??
La quarta riga non ha senso in inglese.
Ciao,
Raymot
[[[[[[[[[[[[

 precisamente?
Oh man......I can't believe this!  i think I must have said at least a
dozen times that song lyrics very often don't make any sense.  Not only
they do not make sense, they are frequently grammatically and
syntactically incorrect (how about these three adverbs in a row.
Pretty bad eh?).  Please don't try to decipher songs.  You'd be wasting
your time.
ciao
arianna
Sent via Deja.com 
http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.

delle canzoni pop??
Una piccola precisazione: "lyricist" corrisponde all'italiano
"paroliere". L'aggettivo italiano "lirico" corrisponde all'inglese
"lyric", quando viene riferito alla poesia, o (IMO) a "operatic" se
riferito alla musica.
Ciao
Ferdinando Chiodo

arianna
Please don't say so... I have learnt so much trying to decipher songs! That
was my first "real" approach to English (out of school I mean). Don't be so
unfair with all those who wrote and write good, interesting, humorous (sp?)
and even grammatically correct lyrics, and there's a whole lot of them. I
don't feel I've wasted my time with songs. They're the most pleasant means
to learn a lot about pronunciation, idioms, everyday language... even
history and geography (if not so much biology, as Sam Cooke used to remark).
Is there anybody in the world who doesn't like music? Anyone thinking music
is useless? Believe me, most italian students start to *really* learn some
English through songs!
Anna

precisamente?
Precisamente te lo potrebbe dire solo chi ha scritto il testo.
In effetti si tratta di una costruzione alquanto bizzarra.
Tuttavia, leggendo l'intera canzone, dove la parola mistaken viene
ripetuta, credo che si tratti solo di un problema di punteggiatura,
che spesso viene omessa nelle liriche.
Secondo me e` piu` comprensibile se viene letta cosi`:
Who are we? (We are) Mistaken.
Piuttosto, come rendereste correttamente in Italiano la parola
"mistaken", so che tutti capite il significato ma io non saprei quale
specifica parola usare per tradurla.
ciao
Janis

 


I thought she/he loved me but I was mistaken.
Forse "ci siamo ingannati " corrisponde alla traduzione ?
A rotten translator
Sal

Salvatore Santangelo ha scritto:

"To be mistaken" significa semplicemente "sbagliarsi/avere torto", ma
ovviamente ha una connotazione negativa.
Quel "who are we mistaken" non significa niente. Probabilmente hanno
ragione Ron e Janis; forse intendono "who are we? mistaken?" anche se cosě
č ugualmente brutto.
Sarebbe un po' come dire in italiano: "Chi siamo? Torto?" (Mentre potrebbe
avere un senso "What are we? mistaken!" = Cos'abbiamo? Torto!")
Piů tardi mi sembra che dicano "We must be mistaken" (dobbiamo esserci
sbagliati) che č la forma normale.
Comunque tutta la canzone mi sembra scritta in modo un po' strano.
Anche la prima riga, per esempio:
"Another head hangs lowly".
Lowly = umile (aggettivo); non č l'avverbio che deriva da low (basso).
Purtroppo č verissimo quello che dicono Arianna e Raymot; gli anglosassoni
badano poco alle parole che scrivono, che sono spesso privo di senso.
Mary
(remove "nospam" to reply)
---
Man still bears the indelible stamp of his lowly origin. -- Darwin.

resort.
Max, if you enjoy trying to understand song lyrics and willingly accept that
grammer is not an important consideration in poetic expression, let me identify
another type of license taken by some songwriters. Occassionally a writer will
transpose words between two phrases of the same sentence. This makes the
sentence appear totally absurd to the literal listener. The songwriter Robert
Zimmerman, also known as Bob Dylan, uses this technique in quite a few of his
songs. Look for it, and post some examples when you find them!
Ciao,
Ron
USA

Occassionally a writer will transpose words
E spesso questo scrittore facero' un sbaglio in ortografia. Mi scusa a tutti gli
italiani che provano imparare inglese, l'ortografia corretta e' "occasionally."
Ciao,
Ron
USA

E spesso questo scrittore facero' un sbaglio
Heh, heh. Questo scrittore fara' molti sbagli anche nel futuro.
Ciao,
Ron
USA

specifica parola usare per tradurla.
Personalmente non riuscirei a renderla con un aggettivo. Io direi 'siamo in
errore'.
Ciao
Isa
Work like you don't need money,
Love like you've never been hurt,
And dance like no one's watching

>I thought she/he loved me but I was mistaken.
Non potrebbe essere anche 'fraintesi', nel senso di non compresi?
'incompresi'.
Si allontana troppo dal significato originale del termine.
saluti,
Peltio
"Oh Lord, please don't let me be misunderstood"
qualcuno, qualche tempo fa...

 qualcuno, qualche tempo fa...
"misunderstand" = fraintendere
"to be misunderstood" = essere frainteso
"to mistake" (one thing for another) = confondere
"to be mistaken = aver sbagliato, aver capito male.
es.:
"If you think I'm going to ...., you're very much mistaken" (se tu pensi
che io.... ti sbagli di grosso).
Mary
(remove "nospam" to reply)
---
I'm just a soul whose intentions are good...

 Please don't say so... I have learnt so much trying to decipher
songs!
Yes, you are right.  I take that back.  I only wanted to point out the
fact that time and time again people have come to this NG asking for
help in translating song lyrics which 99% of the time have
been "untranslateable"  (hey, did I just coin a new word?).  I am sure
you can learn a lot from songs.  However, if you have a certain
knowledge of the language and you  come upon a phrase that you
absolutely do not understand, chances are that the phrase in question
is one which makes no sense.
ciao
Arianna


been "untranslateable"  (hey, did I just coin a new word?). 
It's debatable. 
It looks more like an aberrant spelling of an old word.
Ciao, 
Raymot
[[[[[[[[[

is one which makes no sense.
This I can accept and undersign :-))
Grazie
Anna

English through songs!
Yes, I agree, a lot of my schoolmates sing songs just repeating their
sounds... I think they repeat the words
they hear but don't realize what they're saying, and that's pretty funny.
Bye Asoka xx'82
<< However fast you may run, you will never overreach the ball >>

they hear but don't realize what they're saying, and that's pretty funny.
:-) Yes, that's funny. Some of your schoolmates will probably keep on
repeating sounds without worrying about the meaning and they'll never learn
much English this way; but I hope some of them, one or two at least, will
try to discover what those sounds stand for. And maybe we'll find them here
on icling next year!
Ciao
Anna