mildred_of_midgard: (Default)
mildred_of_midgard ([personal profile] mildred_of_midgard) wrote in [personal profile] cahn 2019-11-15 10:58 am (UTC)

Re: Casanova

Oh, damn. Wow, that is one complicated history, and of *course* the only version I can read is a highly inaccurate one. Dammit!

Thank you for sharing the history of the memoirs. That was super fascinating, even without the warning that I'm reading a very bastardized copy if I read the Gutenberg one.

That's... not something I'm used to seeing from a translator :)

Yeah, it was a *thing*. I would love to see the list if [personal profile] selenak can dig it up.

Re "fine", when I read that, I took it as meaning "good-looking" in rather old-fashioned English, and the Oxford English Dictionary agrees with me: "Of a person or thing: remarkably attractive; good-looking. Now somewhat dated, except U.S. slang (originally and chiefly African-American), of a person: sexually attractive," with examples of the older meaning up to the early 20th century. So since the Machen translation is over 100 years old, I'm willing to go with "good-looking" as the originally intended meaning.

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