Newsgroup: it.cultura.linguistica.inglese
Titolo: Need correction - Necessito di correzione

I developed a program in English language;
I wrote the Guide ( 25 Kb in .rtf format )
and now I'd need a correction
by an English or American native people.
If he'll like my program, I'll give it to him as retribution.
Thanks.
Andrea


Retribution? Tieni anche una lupara?
<<the English language>>
<<I need it corrected (translated?)>>
<<native-speaker (native-speaking person)>>
<<If he likes (you like) my program, I'll give him (you) a copy as
compensation.>>

If he'll like my program, I'll give it to him as retribution.
Oh my.....that sounds funny to my ears.  I am not sure how "retribution" is
used in other English speaking countries, but in the States I think I have only
heard it with the meaning of "punishment".
bye
arianna



That might not be an error; to use a bad program can be a 
punishment all right :)))
+--
I know you can't speak, I know you can't sign
So cry right here on the dotted line

> If he'll like my program, I'll give it to him as retribution.
Sappi che chi scrive bene l'Inglese non e` 
necessariamente di Inghilterra o di America.
Raymot
[[[[[[[[[[[

il Tue, 11 Dec 2001 07:59:52 GMT, 
rmot...@powerup.com.au
 (Raymot) ha
scritto:

Go Aussie! :-)))
Infatti ce ne sono tantissimi kiwis as editors of those big
dictionaries (OED etc.) 
Cheers,
Loki
-- 
  Brevity is the soul of wit.    W.Shakespeare

 punishment all right :)))
Maybe it's a virus.
Andrea, what does your program do?
Lure us into helping you.
saluti,
Peltio

I love this NG.
Ant it loves you back, sweetie. 
Yes, another false friend, also a synonym for "retaliation", I think.
True?
-- 
Isa
Work like you don't need money,
Love like you've never been hurt,
And dance like no one's watching
http://web.tiscali.it/alfabeto_auschwitz/index.htm

This a false friend I did not know.
And yet it's not, according to what I read on the American Heritage
Dictionary:
1.Something given or demanded in repayment; *especially* [but not
only, I would add] punishment.
2. Theology. Punishment *or reward* distributed in a future life based
on *performance* [questo sě che mi suona buffo! Mi immagino Schumacher
che a fine giro chiede: "Come sono andato?"] in this one.
Ciao
Frank

You can see the actual version of my program at
http://digilander.iol.it/important/zoom
(while the new version I'm searching for to
correct has more features added and
will be downloadable when the translation
of the Guide and Web pages will be ready).
I'm really not a very "new friend" of this Newsgroup,
because about one year ago I posted 4-5 post about
problems on traduction of mine.
There was a guy from Ireland I met on this 
Newsgroup that was helping me very gently
on translations, named Ian C... , but it's a
whole month that I'm not receiving any 
email fron him and I don't know what 
happened to him:
if he is fine, if his email program or account has any problem,
is he's on holiday ...
I'm searching for receiving some news about him
and for some native English speaking person or 
for someone who perfectly knows English language
(is it correct this time ?     ; - )     ) to help me to
translate some stuff I'll send him by email.
I also developed another program in the case you are
interested and it is at 
http://digilander.iol.it/important/pacman
but actually I don' t think I need correction about it.

 True?
Non essato. Il Dio da retribution, non mai retaliation.

 only, I would add] punishment.
Non ho mai sentito retribution nel senso della ricompensa. Mi interessebbe di
vedere gli esempi nell'uso commune.

2. Theology. Punishment *or reward* distributed in a future life based
For what is worth, I never saw 'retribution' used in  the sense
of reward.


 True?
I think think that would be better served with 'revenge',  Retaliate
is to pay in kind. 'lex talionis' - if that means anything to latin
readers out there  - is synonymous with retaliation. 
Revenge is to avenge a wrong. 
'Retribution' does, according to my dictionary, mean recompense,
reward. But I have to say the first meaning that comes to mind is its
other meaning of the dispensing of punishment, rather than of reward.
'Compensation' has probably taken over the reward meaning.
'False friends'. That usually means a word in one language looking
like but meaning something different in the other language, right? In
English itself there are false friends, or whatever the term is.
Words that look similar and are commonly confused. e.g.  discreet and
discrete.
Try this american's language web site. He has some interesting pages,
including common errors in English (by English speakers).
http://www.wsu.edu/~brians/errors/errors.html
 
http://www.wsu.edu/~brians
  (Paul Brians' home page) 




Oh. Untrue then :-)
By the way, if you don't mind a few corrections, that would be
"esatto", and if you are speaking about God in general, you may omit
the article "il".


vedere gli esempi nell'uso commune.
Neither have I, but that's one of the meaning listed in the M-W.  I am sure
that in theory  that is one of the meanings, however, as I said in my earlier
post, I have never heard it used in that sense.  That's why the original post
sounds so funny to an English speaking person  (no offense!).  Of course, if
you learned English from a book or a dictionary, then you'd think it was OK.
bye
Arianna

...

There are examples of retribution as a synonym for reward or
recompense, but I doubt whether this use is in current common use.
QUOTE
1872
FAIRY TALES OF HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN
THE JEWISH MAIDEN
by Hans Christian Andersen
...
    Ere long came another summons to a struggle with the foes of
Christianity. The still living knight heard the sound; he could endure
no more, he had neither peace nor rest. He caused himself to be lifted
on his war-horse; the color came into his cheeks, and his strength
returned to him again as he went forth to battle and to victory. The
very same pasha who had yoked him to the plough, became his
prisoner, and was dragged to a dungeon in the castle. But an hour
had scarcely passed, when the knight stood before the captive pasha,
and inquired, "What do you suppose awaiteth thee?"
    "I know," replied the pasha; "retribution."
    "Yes, the retribution of a Christian," replied the knight. "The
teaching of Christ, the Teacher, commands us to forgive our enemies,
to love our neighbors; for God is love. Depart in peace: return to thy
home. I give thee back to thy loved ones. But in future be mild and
humane to all who are in trouble."
    Then the prisoner burst into tears, and exclaimed, "Oh how could I
imagine such mercy and forgiveness! I expected pain and torment. It
seemed to me so sure that I took poison, which I secretly carried
about me; and in a few hours its effects will destroy me. I must
die! Nothing can save me! But before I die, explain to me the teaching
which is so full of love and mercy, so great and God-like. Oh, that
I may hear his teaching, and die a Christian!" And his prayer was
granted.
...
UNQUOTE
Here, retribution seems to mean forgiveness.
---
Xakero

 vedere gli esempi nell'uso commune.
QUOTE
THE CONSERVATIVE
A Lecture delivered at the Masonic Temple,
Boston, December 9, 1841
...
        It is trivial and merely superstitious to say that nothing is
given you, no outfit, no exhibition; for in this institution of
_credit_, which is as universal as honesty and promise in the human
countenance, always some neighbor stands ready to be bread and land
and tools and stock to the young adventurer.  And if in any one
respect they have come short, see what ample *retribution* of good they
have made.  They have lost no time and spared no expense to collect
libraries, museums, galleries, colleges, palaces, hospitals,
observatories, cities.  The ages have not been idle, nor kings slack,
nor the rich niggardly.  
...
UNQUOTE
---
Xakero

 vedere gli esempi nell'uso commune.
QUOTE
ESSAYS
First Series
by Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882)
...
        Thus is the universe alive.  All things are moral.  That soul,
which within us is a sentiment, outside of us is a law.  We feel its
inspiration; out there in history we can see its fatal strength.  "It
is in the world, and the world was made by it." Justice is not
postponed.  A perfect equity adjusts its balance in all parts of
life.  {Oi chusoi Dios aei enpiptousi}, -- The dice of God are always
loaded.  The world looks like a multiplication-table, or a
mathematical equation, which, turn it how you will, balances itself.
Take what figure you will, its exact value, nor more nor less, still
returns to you.  Every secret is told, every crime is punished, every
virtue rewarded, every wrong redressed, in silence and certainty.
What we call *retribution* is the universal necessity by which the
whole appears wherever a part appears.  If you see smoke, there must
be fire.  If you see a hand or a limb, you know that the trunk to
which it belongs is there behind.
...
UNQUOTE
Here, I see that retribution stans for either recompense or punishment.
---
Xakero

...

QUOTE
1788
The Federalist Papers
by Alexander Hamilton
...
  Suppose, as has been contended for, the federal power of taxation
were to be confined to duties on imports, it is evident that the
government, for want of being able to command other resources, would
frequently be tempted to extend these duties to an injurious excess.
There are persons who imagine that they can never be carried to too
great a length; since the higher they are, the more it is alleged they
will tend to discourage an extravagant consumption, to produce a
favorable balance of trade, and to promote domestic manufactures.
But all extremes are pernicious in various ways. Exorbitant duties
on imported articles would beget a general spirit of smuggling;
which is always prejudicial to the fair trader, and eventually to
the revenue itself: they tend to render other classes of the community
tributary, in an improper degree, to the manufacturing classes, to
whom they give a premature monopoly of the markets; they sometimes
force industry out of its more natural channels into others in which
it flows with less advantage; and in the last place, they oppress
the merchant, who is often obliged to pay them himself without any
*retribution* from the consumer. When the demand is equal to the
quantity of goods at market, the consumer generally pays the duty; but
when the markets happen to be overstocked, a great proportion falls
upon the merchant, and sometimes not only exhausts his profits, but
breaks in upon his capital. I am apt to think that a division of the
duty, between the seller and the buyer, more often happens than is
commonly imagined. It is not always possible to raise the price of a
commodity in exact proportion to every additional imposition laid upon
it. The merchant, especially in a country of small commercial capital,
is often under a necessity of keeping prices down in order to make a
more expeditious sale.
...
UNQUOTE
Retribution: Paying something without getting anything in return.
---
Xakero

...

QUOTE
1651
LEVIATHAN
by Thomas Hobbes
...
  To have received from one, to whom we think ourselves equal, greater
benefits than there is hope to requite, disposeth to counterfeit love,
but really secret hatred, and puts a man into the estate of a
desperate debtor that, in declining the sight of his creditor, tacitly
wishes him there where he might never see him more. For benefits
oblige; and obligation is thraldom; and unrequitable obligation,
perpetual thraldom; which is to one's equal, hateful. But to have
received benefits from one whom we acknowledge for superior inclines
to love; because the obligation is no new depression: and cheerful
acceptation (which men call gratitude) is such an honour done to the
obliger as is taken generally for *retribution*. Also to receive
benefits, though from an equal, or inferior, as long as there is
hope of requital, disposeth to love: for in the intention of the
receiver, the obligation is of aid and service mutual; from whence
proceedeth an emulation of who shall exceed in benefiting; the most
noble and profitable contention possible, wherein the victor is
pleased with his victory, and the other revenged by confessing it.
...
UQUOTE
I am a little in a muddle about this one, but I think here retribution means reward.
---
Xakero

...

Third to the last line in the quotation below.
QUOTE
LETTERS
by Thomas Jefferson
A PROFESSION OF POLITICAL FAITH
Philadelphia, Jan. 26, 1799
...
I am for freedom of religion, & against all maneuvres to
bring about a legal ascendancy of one sect over another: for freedom
of the press, & against all violations of the constitution to silence
by force & not by reason the complaints or criticisms, just or
unjust, of our citizens against the conduct of their agents.  And I
am for encouraging the progress of science in all it's branches; and
not for raising a hue and cry against the sacred name of philosophy;
for awing the human mind by stories of raw-head & bloody bones to a
distrust of its own vision, & to repose implicitly on that of others;
to go backwards instead of forwards to look for improvement; to
believe that government, religion, morality, & every other science
were in the highest perfection in ages of the darkest ignorance, and
that nothing can ever be devised more perfect than what was
established by our forefathers.  To these I will add, that I was a
sincere well-wisher to the success of the French revolution, and
still wish it may end in the establishment of a free & well-ordered
republic; but I have not been insensible under the atrocious
depredations they have committed on our commerce.  The first object
of my heart is my own country.  In that is embarked my family, my
fortune, & my own existence.  I have not one farthing of interest,
nor one fibre of attachment out of it, nor a single motive of
preference of any one nation to another, but in proportion as they
are more or less friendly to us.  But though deeply feeling the
injuries of France, I did not think war the surest means of
redressing them.  I did believe, that a mission sincerely disposed to
preserve peace, would obtain for us a peaceable & honorable
settlement & *retribution*; and I appeal to you to say, whether this
might not have been obtained, if either of your colleagues had been
of the same sentiment with yourself.
...
UNQUOTE
Here, I think Jefferson must have meant retribution as reward.
---
Xakero

...

QUOTE
NOTES ON THE STATE OF VIRGINIA
by Thomas Jefferson
...
The king and company
quarrelled, and, by a mixture of law and force, the latter were
ousted of all their rights, without *retribution*, after having
expended 100,000 l. in establishing the colony, without the smallest
aid from government.  
...
UNQUOTE
Being deprived of something without compensation.
---
Xakero

...

QUOTE
1843
THE HISTORY OF THE CONQUEST OF MEXICO
by William Hickling Prescott
...
    The Spaniards and Tlascalans were not slow to avail themselves
of the marvellous change in their affairs. Their fatigue, their
wounds, hunger, thirst, all were forgotten in the eagerness for
vengeance; and they followed up the flying foe, dealing death at every
stroke, and taking ample *retribution* for all they had suffered in
the bloody marshes of Mexico. Long did they pursue, till, the enemy
having abandoned the field, they returned sated with slaughter to
glean the booty which he had left.
...
UQUOTE
War booty as compensation for past suffering. Here, I see *taking
retribution* also as *taking revenge* by menas of *slaughering*.
---
Xakero

...

QUOTE
1782
THE CONFESSIONS OF JEAN-JACQUES ROUSSEAU
by Jean-Jacques Rousseau
translated by W. Conyngham Mallory
...
I gave him my manuscript, which I had copied by a lackey, belonging to
M. de Francueil of the name of Dupont, who wrote very well. I paid him
ten crowns out of my own pocket, and these have never been
reimbursed me. Diderot had promised me a *retribution* on the part of
the booksellers, of which he has never since spoken to me nor I to
him.
...
UNQUOTE
Payment for a manuscript.
---
Xakero

...

In a single document, several instances of retribution with the
meaning of compensation, recompense, or benefit:
QUOTE
1776
AN INQUIRY INTO THE NATURE AND
CAUSES OF THE WEALTH OF NATIONS
by Adam Smith
...
In a perfectly fair lottery, those
who draw the prizes ought to gain all that is lost by those who draw
the blanks. In a profession where twenty fail for one that succeeds,
that one ought to gain all that should have been gained by the
unsuccessful twenty. The counsellor-at-law who, perhaps, at near forty
years of age, begins to make something by his profession, ought to
receive the *retribution*, not only of his own so tedious and
expensive education, but that of more than twenty others who are never
likely to make anything by it.
...
How extravagant soever the fees of
counsellors-at-law may sometimes appear, their real *retribution* is
never equal to this. Compute in any particular place what is likely to
be annually gained, and what is likely to be annually spent, by all
the different workmen in any common trade, such as that of
shoemakers or weavers, and you will find that the former sum will
generally exceed the latter.
...
    What are called poll-taxes in the southern provinces of North
America, and in the West Indian Islands annual taxes of so much a head
upon every negro, are properly taxes upon the profits of a certain
species of stock employed in agriculture. As the planters are, the
greater part of them, both farmers and landlords, the final payment of
the tax falls upon them in their quality of landlords without any
*retribution*.
...
    Taxes upon luxuries have no tendency to raise the price of any
other commodities except that of the commodities taxed. Taxes upon
necessaries, by raising the wages of labour, necessarily tend to raise
the price of all manufactures, and consequently to diminish the extent
of their sale and consumption. Taxes upon luxuries are finally paid by
the consumers of the commodities taxed without any *retribution*.
...
    Such taxes upon luxuries as the greater part of the duties of
customs and excise, though they all fall indifferently upon every
different species of revenue, and are paid finally, or without any
*retribution*, by whoever consumes the commodities upon which they are
imposed, yet they do not always fall equally or proportionably upon
the revenue of every individual.
...
UNQUOTE
Now we know where today's and yesterday's polititians got the idea for
the sales tax or valued added tax.
---
Xakero
  I stopped paying income tax.

of reward.
Non voglio insistere che il significato di reward sia comune, ma di
certo č accettato.
Due esempi tratti rapidamente dalla rete:
http://www.petersnet.net/most/getchap.cfm?WorkNum=216&ChapNum=9
<<at least the truth of retribution, reward *and* punishment in the
future life >>
http://www.bu.edu/wcp/Papers/Comp/CompGian.htm
<<Accordingly, Justice holds the keys of retribution (reward *and*
punishment) that open the gates of the House of Light.>>
--
Ciao
Frank

 1776
Dovrei detto dopo 1900, ma grazie.

 [ibid]
What#s with all these old old quotes? Language does change ya kno -
English more than others it seems :-)))


 Dovrei detto dopo 1900, ma grazie.
You did say "nell'uso comune", which I did understand to mean "in
current use" but as I said I found nothing current -- at the time.
Now, on 
http://www.time.com/time/asia/magazine/2000/0117/japan.slavelabor.html
,
I found an article dated January 17, 2000
QUOTE
For decades, Asians forced to work for Japan suffered mostly in
silence. Traumatized physically and emotionally, many focused on
simple survival. Authoritarian governments and cold war realpolitik
blunted calls for compensation. So did massive Japanese aid to the
region. As the cold war wound down and countries like South Korea,
Taiwan and the Philippines opened up, many victims decided it was time
to exhume the past. But winning *retribution* has proven difficult.
Tokyo has been unsympathetic, arguing that postwar treaties closed the
book on compensation claims. Lawsuits brought in Japanese courts
mostly went nowhere: judges said the wrongs occurred too long ago.
UNQUOTE
Winning retribution: obtaining compensation for a perceived wrong
suffered in the past.
Of course, the person or entity having to pay the compensaion may
consider it a punishment on his/its part.
Still, I can't see retribution as an offer of a reward for help with a
translation.
I see retribution as something to correct a wrong, which some types of
punishement can be, but I should not use it as a synonym for revenge.
Retribution is exacted to obtain justice; revenge is based on hate.
Basically, the Webster dictionary has it right: retribution as one
man's punishment that is another man's compensation or recompense.
---
Xakero