Brokeback Mountain: Our Community's Common Bond > Brokeback Mountain Open Forum
Why the Lie?
vkm91941:
--- Quote from: tiawahcowboy on May 29, 2006, 03:54:07 pm --- what old west type cowboy would admit to herding sheep for a living?
--- End quote ---
Ennis was a poor boy from a poor ranch in Wyoming..It's 1963. It has nothing to do with being an old west type cowboy. There's no way he disappeared without explanation or without writing to her for 3 months. They were planning to marry, Alma knew where Ennis was and what he was doing to earn the money so they could marry.
--- Quote ---I always thought that the "rolling his own" comment was in reference to masturbation.
--- End quote ---
--- Quote ---
When one is rolling his own, it has to do with buying his own pouch of smoking tobacco and own cigarette papers and hand-rolling his own cigarettes.
--- End quote ---
Well in Missouri in 1925 per my Dad and still in Montana and Wyoming 1985 per my own experiences the expression rolling your own could mean making your own cigarettes or male masturbation.
--- Quote ---Oh, my its really interesting how so many women think they understand everything there is to know about men, including how they think and what they do with themselves while they are thinking.
--- End quote ---
Hey, watch it, this is a friendly forum and misogynistic statements only make you look like the stereotypical gay male who hates women. Not only that it's a mean spirited manipulative snipe at the other poster whom you know to be female. You're the one who brought up internet etiquette this is bad form. As is dismissing other posters comments because you assume that English may not be the posters first language.
Lets keep it light, positive and keep it fun. Thanks
Mikaela:
English is in fact not my first language either. Though I've only ever participated in English-speaking parts of BBM fandom, I've still bought the recently published local language translated version of Close Range. It's been published by a well-reputed publishing house that certainly can be expected to use experienced translators who'll manage to capture and preserve ambiguities and colloquial nuances necessary to the story in their translation.
"Wrang it out" is translated unambiguously into a word that *only* means "masturbated". "Rollling his own" is translated into an expression that means "doing manual work". Obviously the translator in question didn't have any doubt what the guys were talking about there, - and neither have I.
tiawahcowboy:
--- Quote from: vkm91941 on May 30, 2006, 05:20:06 am ---Ennis was a poor boy from a poor ranch in Wyoming..It's 1963. It has nothing to do with being an old west type cowboy. There's no way he disappeared without explanation or without writing to her for 3 months. They were planning to marry, Alma knew where Ennis was and what he was doing to earn the money so they could marry.
--- End quote ---
I made the original comment because of the actual books written by Old West cowboys, some of whom hid the fact that they did herd sheep sometime in their lives after they got ranch work. We really do not even know how Ennis met Alma Beers in the first place. It is almost like Ennis felt he had to marry her. We do know that it was not because she was pregnant. Since Ennis got his job with Aguirre because he signed up with "Farm and Ranch Employment" (possibly a state agency), he could have just told her that he got a job for the summer working on a ranch.
--- Quote from: vkm91941 on May 30, 2006, 05:20:06 am ---Well in Missouri in 1925 per my Dad and still in Montana and Wyoming 1985 per my own experiences the expression rolling your own could mean making your own cigarettes or male masturbation.
--- End quote ---
Not disagreeing with you here, Victoria . . . Well, it also means, as far as gay men are concerned, one does not have to purchase certain things if he agrees to have sex with a man who will buy him or give him cigarettes, beer, drugs, etc..
--- Quote from: vkm91941 on May 30, 2006, 05:20:06 am ---Hey, watch it, this is a friendly forum and misogynistic statements only make you look like the stereotypical gay male who hates women. Not only that it's a mean spirited manipulative snipe at the other poster whom you know to be female. You're the one who brought up internet etiquette this is bad form. As is dismissing other posters comments because you assume that English may not be the posters first language.
--- End quote ---
Ma'am, I have had non-American women on various Brokeback Forums and Yahoo Groups tell me I have been wrong about something and they had no idea what an American expression that I had used even meant. Oh, I don't hate women at all. I get along with women in real life no matter what their sexual orientation might me.
My comments towards certain women in BetterMost is the fact that just like in those other cyber-situations they think they know men better than men do and almost every woman who has made that statement is in a heterosexual relationship with a man.
--- Quote from: vkm91941 on May 30, 2006, 05:20:06 am ---Lets keep it light, positive and keep it fun. Thanks
--- End quote ---
Trying to do that here, that's why I let Phillip know about people seeming to be more interested in harassing me than discussing the topic of discussion.
tiawahcowboy:
--- Quote from: Mikaela on May 30, 2006, 05:52:48 am ---English is in fact not my first language either. Though I've only ever participated in English-speaking parts of BBM fandom, I've still bought the recently published local language translated version of Close Range. It's been published by a well-reputed publishing house that certainly can be expected to use experienced translators who'll manage to capture and preserve ambiguities and colloquial nuances necessary to the story in their translation.
"Wrang it out" is translated unambiguously into a word that *only* means "masturbated". "Rollling his own" is translated into an expression that means "doing manual work". Obviously the translator in question didn't have any doubt what the guys were talking about there, - and neither have I.
--- End quote ---
Well, "wrang it out" can be related to the putting of one thoughts through the wringer trying to figure out exactly what something meant or why some situation happened with the thinking person not understanding why. Ennis Del Mar did not understand why it took him at least a hundred times when thinking about sex with a guy, it was always Jack Twist. He did not have to masturbate.
Back in the 1950s and 1960s, if a person had a washing machine at home, it was the type with a wringer attached and there were two rollers in the wringer that one put the clothes through to wring as much water as possible out of them. We had one which had a gasoline motor and we generally either used it out side or on the back porch. We had one similar to the pic below; but, it had a much larger tub than that one.
Since I took courses in Spanish and French in university, I also know that some expressions in those languages did not translate too well into English. In some cases, American English had no expression comparable to the original language because the expression was related to something that only a Native speaker would understand. So, rather than just attempt to mentally translate/interpret the original into English, it was better to just try to think in the original language. Sort of OT here; but, in 1990 I was a US Census Enumerator who did follow-up interviews at residences of those who improperly filled out their original forms, never mailed them in or never received them in the first place. While I did have the official Spanish language questionnaires, they were written in standardized Spanish for those who were actually studied Spanish grammar in classes which was in their first language.
But, most of the people with whom I talked were from Mexico and they did not have many formal classes in their native language. Since I had learned a number of "border-slang" expressions, which were called "bizcochos," "biscuits" in English translations, meaning they were hispanicized English words, I had to substitue the "biscuits" for the formal words so they would not what I was talking about.
serious crayons:
I know that more sensible minds than mine have urged that we set this issue aside and get on with the real topic of the thread. But I just have to make this point (as I did once before when this same topic came up with a poster going by the name of Joe). To insist that Annie Proulx would have used such a conspicuous and colorful idiom without realizing that 90 percent of the people reading it would interpret it to mean something else -- particularly something sexual -- is to give Annie Proulx WAAAAAAYYYY too little credit.
No decent literary writer would make that kind of mistake, not once but at least three times (wrang it out, rolling his own, stemming the rose). And Annie Proulx is an excellent literary writer.
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