Everytime I see that Ptahhotep ‘party girl’ translation it hurts my soul. That’s a very difficult text, and that passage in particular is of debateable translation. The grammar and vocab are tricky, we’re not entirely sure what it’s saying, and there’s some cultural context we’re lacking too.
So seeing it reduced to 'party girl’ makes me tinabelchernoise.mp3
I was reminded of the 'party girl’ quote, so here’s what the passage actually says (lacunae are filled by other copies of the text).
This sounds far more like “If you found a good woman don’t fumble her.” Than it does party girl. And I dunno how anyone came to the party girl conclusion.
Yes, that’s pretty much the line and would read well in the rest of the context of the Maxims of Ptahhotep. It’s a wisdom text, passed down from father to son (Ptahhotep being the father speaking) about how to live a good Egyptian life. Something from the original is always lost in translation, and that goes doubly so for ancient texts. We’re missing a lot of context and social norms that would have made this an easy read for someone back then.
So here’s the translation I hate:
The first line (from both my image and this one in transliteration reads as follows: ir iri=k Hm.t m Spn.t
'ir’ (the first two signs, one reed leaf, one mouth sign) is a conditional clause marker, giving the sentence the meaning of 'if’.
'iri’ (the eye) is the verb 'to do/to make/to possess’. This is followed by pronoun =k 'you’ (the basket beneath the eye).
Hm.t (the well with water, the semi circle of bread, and the seated woman) is 'woman’.
m (the owl) is a preposition meaning 'in’ but…there’s grammar stuff here I’m not gonna explain. It’s unnecessary for the context.
Spn.t (the oblong pool of water, the seat sign beneath, the water sign beneath that, the semi circle of bread, and a pustule) is a relative form of the verb Spn and means 'one who is voluptuous woman’.
I’m not kidding, this is the dictionary entry for it on the Thesaurus Linguae Aegyptia.
We know it means that a) because it’s used in other contexts to describe voluptuous woman (fatness is a sign of health and wealth in Ancient Egypt) and b) the pustule determinative marks it out as word that has something to do with the body or bodily functions. It’s a word that describes the body, not a personality.
Here’s a different translation, but for the same passge of the same text:
So, with that said, a translation of 'party girl’ is so far removed from the context and meaning of the original text that the translator has simply written what they liked as a meaning. There’s really no justification for it. It is quite literally nothing at all like the original text and it infuriates me to see a wisdom text from a civilisation whose culture modern discussion on barely gets out of 'they’re obsessed with death and cats, and oh did we mention aliens and curses’ reduced to 'party girl’.
If you wanted a better, idiomised translation, I’d go with:
'Find a wife from a wealthy family, one who is liked by all those in the town. Never divorce her! Treat her well! Life will be good for both of you.’
It’s simple, it fits the context of a father imparting wisdom to his son, and doesn’t wildly extrapolate from the meanings of the words themselves.
Bringing this back to remind you all that while the literal translation says 'voluptuous woman’ it doesn’t really mean 'marry a fat woman’ in the cultural context.
In Ancient Egypt, fatness was relatively positive and was considered a sign of health and wealth. It’s that last part that’s key to understanding what Ptahhotep was trying to impart to his son. Since this is a wisdom text, Ptahhotep wants his son to marry well, and this would generally mean 'marry rich’.
But that’s considered rather gauche. You can’t just come out and say 'son marry a girl who’s daddy’s got money’. So, the language here is couched. He’s using a well known (for the Egyptians) idiom (a word or phrase that has a different meaning to the words by themselves) to say it instead.
Since fatness = this person has wealth and prosperity in Ancient Egypt, we know that Ptahhotep isn’t saying 'marry a fat woman’ he’s instead implying, through the choice of idiom, that his son should 'marry a rich woman and treat her well’ and therefore he’ll have a happy life.
I know it’s tempting to take things at their literal meaning, but, particularly with ancient texts, it’s necessary to see if the choice of words or phrases holds any cultural significance before trying to derive meaning from them.
TL;DR: translation hard, especially when you have to sift through ancient cultural context too
Would “Marry a girl who has never missed her tea-” Be a good idiomatic translation into modern (Northern english) English?
Since it gets both a sense of being comparatively well-off (Implies her family has never had days with no food on the table), and the idea that she is well-behaved (She is home in time for tea with the implication being a tea-time set by her family rather than living alone, she isn’t the sort to go to the pub after work, she isn’t doing faddy diets either - also implies her family is a Good Family by extension), it’s a slight kenning for physical chubbiness, and it is an existing idiom that is the sort of thing a young man’s Dad might say to him.
No, not really. That divorces it from the Egyptian context and also removes the original meaning. It very firmly places it in a modern (northern) English context and culture which is nothing like the Egyptian one it is depicting.
The translation I gave of “Find a wife from a wealthy family…” is already idomised for a modern audience. I’ve taken “Find a voluptuous woman…” and given it an idiomatic translation so that it is clear what is meant by the original text. That’s why I say that translation of ancient texts is difficult. You can only do so much to bring it into the realm of familiarity for the audience you’re translating for without dismissing what the original text said in its entirety.
You could almost get away with this translation if this were the only passage from Ptahhotep. However, this is a single verse from around the midpoint of a rather extensive text that talks about Egyptian life and social structure. Its cultural heart is firmly placed with the lives of those who lived during the New Kingdom (it’s a Middle Kingdom text, pretending to have been written during the Old Kingdom (archaism for glory days is strong) and altered for a New Kingdom audience) and not those who live in Bolton. These are the Maxims of Ptahhotep not the Maxims of Andy Burnham! (He’s the closest to a Vizier in this context).
Ngl after knowing everything we know about Neyo it makes his conversation with Boba (in boba 5/7) have such a new meaning.
Also did he send a text in the clone group chat (they are all dramatic bastards they definitely have a group chat) about boba’s meeting with Windu? Or just a PSA? Like btw boba had a run in with Windu just thought you all should know. Or did he just send out a dramatic “something has happened” and never elaborated. Although it is completely possible that he didn’t say shit.
Yep! Guy is really king of having a trauma response and then immediately salivating to murder someone about it. At some point does it just become Pavlovian. I think he knows he overreacted and that there’s not actually anything to warn about.
Neyo would rather die than talk in a groupchat. He’s not part of a single one. He also hates the Holonet and the only time he ever uses it is to go on Space I Can Haz Cheezburger. He barely even knows how to get to the site, he makes Bacara do it for him.
Fox is in groupchats but just because Wolffe adds him. He literally never looks at them. I’m sorry, I know I’m nuking the chatfics. Obi-Wan’s in 501st groupchats (extremely plentiful) but they’re all called COMMANDER hang chat! COMMANDER or WITH COMMANDER torrent talk PLUS COMMANDER. Echo says it’s so they remember not to post porn in those chats. It’s not why.
@loriache WORD. I don’t think it’s impossible to write a good chatfic, because I think almost anything can be good if you do it well, but I think they struggle so much exactly because of how the writers tend to give everybody the speech patterns and texting habits of <20yo overly online gay teens.
Had an incredible barrage of “Miles Edgeworth Would Not Fucking Say That” via Ace Attorney fanfics yesterday. Miles Edgeworth is overly online and vocal in online fandom spaces but he does not have a Tumblr or a Discord. He is a Redditor. He does post extremely long but very insightful meta breakdowns on Reddit, but he’s extremely adversarial and constantly picks fights with interpretations he disagrees with. I do not want him in my Discord server. All he would do is start pointless fights and continue escalating and I would have to shut it down every time.
Give room for characters to not be your friends and be extremely unrelatable imho.
exiting a uquiz halfway through when it becomes clear the creator’s narrow and immature world view and cultural knowledge leaves them totally unequipped to tell me which peanuts character i am with any degree of accuracy or insight
my niche version of “he would not fucking say that” is “he would not fucking carry that baby to term” for mpreg headcanons. sometimes there is power in recognizing that a fictional man WOULD get a mabortion
you won’t fucking believe it. yeah. yeah. i had that dream again last night. the one where i was perched atop a throne of human skulls. yeah. uh huh. yes the howling wind and shrieking seagulls were there too.
Might be a tad hypocritical considering I charge absurdly low rates for my music comms (mostly bc due to how the world economy works one USD is worth much more here in my country than it is in the US), but if you’re wholeheartedly, unironically proposing “consider reaching out to hobbyist VAs who’d be more than happy to be paid what amounts to pennies per hour of work :)” as a more ethical alternative to using AI voices in a creative project I think your priorities are completely out of whack.
You know technology literacy is dying because I saw this meme with 76k likes
F11 the full screen button? You’re scared of the full screen button? F10?? It opens the menu bar???
Computers are so scary what if I accidentally hit F12 in a steam game and it takes a screenshot. What if I press shift + F12 while in word and accidentally save my document 😖
