At 11:07 PM 8/1/96 -0700, you wrote:
>At 09:48 PM 8/1/96 -0700, Gregory Matteson <matteson@ccnet.com> wrote:
>>At 10:30 PM 7/31/96 -0700, you wrote:
>>>>        We could go on like this indefinately, and you could probably
>>>>explain adequately every problem I could raise, but you would be shooting
>>>>yourself in the foot.  
>>>But so far it looks more like you're shooting yourself in the foot...  ;p
>>        Considering you've admitted to a major problem with the conceptual
>>structure of the text.
>
>Funny, I don't recall saying anything like that (that 101 contains "a major
>problem with the conceptual structure of the text).  I'll admit that Tenchi
>101 is not without its faults (hey, the writers are humans, too, and we all
>make mistakes, that's human), but so far have yet to see an error that is
>anything more than minor.
>
>Perhaps in "structure of the text" you mean what I said about the format in
>which the "More Details" section has taken, which was not the same in the
>English translation.  IMHO the English translation is still excellent,
>although certain parts of it can be misleading because of the way it
>differed from the original.
>
>
>Glenn Wang <brief@ix.netcom.com>  http://www.netcom.com/~brief/

        Following is a copy of the passage which we both, indeed, are
referring to from your postings yesterday.  I really kind of hoped you would
not try to defend the language problem approach to what you said. If you
don't blame language, then you are left with the underlying structure
causing the ambiguity. I didn't and don't mean this as some kind of trap.
Every once in a while one person hits another's hot buttons, and I have
really tried to stay on subject, cool and objective, and keep my fangs out
of the keyboard.
        Eugene Lee may razz me about my very bad Japanese, but I only first
started thinking about learning Japanese about 3 years ago at age 42, this
is very late for someone who, though facinated by languages, is really not
very good at learning to speak and hear them. At least I try, which is a lot
more than can be said for most of my fellow Americans. However I have
studied a number of languages seriously, taking 2 years of university
German, and a couple of linguistics courses.  I think that I can apply what
I am saying without regard to my facility, or lack thereof, in the language
in question.
        All natural human languages are more or less equal in their overall
ability to express and communicate for the needs of their human users.
Learners and studiers may find a particular quality of difference from the
language the were born to, but any language is capable of clear and certain
expression of ideas, and in particular there is no inherent problem of
ambiguity in the Japanese language: It is the fault of writers or their
editors, period. If this were not so, the Japanese would not be able to
produce first rate scholarship in their language. As it is, Japan produces
more than its fair share of world class scholars, most of them working in
their own language.


"That is, unfortunately, a mis-translation because of some ambiguity in the
original Japanese sentence.  As I've mentioned before, the actual "More
Details" section was originally written in a semi-interview format.  What
this means is that Yousuke Kuroda asks the questions in more detail, and
Masaki Kajishima replies.  "Semi"-interview because not everything in the
"More Details" section is in Q&A format, it also includes interpretation of
the questions and answers, or "Kuroda's thoughts."  The quote in question
was actually a statement by Kuroda, but because of the ambiguity from the
lack of pronouns in Japanese, it can also be interpreted as coming from
Ryoko herself, leading to an incorrect translation."

        If you want to fault me for extracting a wrong interpretation of
what you have said, I hope at least you will back down from any implication
of blaming the language.  If the reading of the text is ambiguous, then it
was published in ambiguous form.

                                Greg M.