Dennise Serrano (asker) Mar 12, 2010:

Margaret Por ser una palabra que ni siquiera los hablantes del español entenderían, pues ha caído en desuso, es importante que aparezca en el texto porque da una noción del tiempo de la historia. Obviamente al utilizarla hay que agregar una nota al calce o explicitación para aclarar a que se refiere la misma. Muchas gracias a todos por sus comentarios y sugerencias

margaret caulfield Mar 12, 2010:

Perdona la falta de tildes en mi mensaje. Mi teclado se ha vuelto loco temporalmente.

margaret caulfield Mar 12, 2010:

Denny: Mientras estoy de acuerdo con los comentarios de Carmen, debo decirte que de ninguna manera estoy de acuerdo con tu eleccion. Mi propio padre (que solo habla ingles) me esta visitando en estos momentos y le acabo de preguntar si el entenderia "santon". Su respuesta es "no". Yo jamas he visto esta palabra utilizada en ingles y eso que soy linguista. Aun asi, yo tampoco la entenderia en una conversacion en ingles. Pero, tu mismo...

Carmen Schultz Mar 12, 2010:

If there is not a real equivalent term that conveys the same cultural nuances, etc., there are writing techniques such as compensation and such that writers and translators use to navigate this situation. I don't think using santones in Spanish here works too well. I think it would work if it were a more folkloric word or very typical term to a region or culture but surely in English the idea can be conveyed via compensation should one exact term not suffice.

Carmen Schultz Mar 12, 2010:

I had a thought about the term "Holy-Roller", this may work and it is a noun and could refer to either a man or woman

Dennise Serrano (asker) Mar 11, 2010:

more context This is the paragraph: Se me trastornó el sentido. Hice mal, muy mal y, sin embargo, no sé, en mi pellejo lo que harían más de cien santones. En fin, repito que me puse como lunático, y sin intención, sin premeditar las consecuencias (porque repito que perdí la chaveta completamente), yo, que había vivido más de veinte años como hombre de bien y marido leal, lo eché a rodar todo en un día....

Lourdes Sanchez Mar 10, 2010:

In my opinion translating santon is imposing a meaning on it. Santon is a way of being not an attitude. Santon evokes the smell of incense and soot (even if only metaphorically) while holier than thou can be used in many different contexts, not only the religious one. A santon is a pseudo-holy person and might or might not be a big shot.

This excerpt from the link I posted

Cultures are getting closer and closer and this is something that I believe translators need to take into account. Of course it is also possible to defend any other option... or more often, the publisher wants to achieve with a certain translation. I would go for option a) because:

the text reads more fluently
the text remains more exotic, more foreign
the translator is closer to the source culture
the reader of the target texts gets a more genuine image of the source culture
the target text is more correct
globalisation has made this option possible and more acceptable

Sergio Campo Mar 10, 2010:

sanctimonious In my opinion, the problem with sanctimonious (santomonious hypocrites, sanctimonious feel) is that this word is an adjective in english, while the spanish word "santon" in this context works as a noun. Having more context (sentence) would be good. If the whole sentence to translate is the first one in the question (Santón significa hombre hipócrita o que aparenta santidad), then maybe the best solution would be not to translate it, as Lourdes says.

margaret caulfield Mar 10, 2010:

denny: ¿Por qué no das la frase entera? Así, tal vez consigas la traducción adecuada.

Carolina Brito Mar 10, 2010:

#
Use sanctimonious in a sentence | sanctimonious sentence examples
hypocrite: Joan calls Dennis and Meg a bunch of sanctimonious hypocrites for trying to get rid of her. ... rather: Somehow holiness has a rather sanctimonious feel to it. ...
www.yourdictionary.com/examples/sanctimonious - Cached