# right-on



## diait

I have to translate this paragraph, which is part of Tracey Thorn's column on the New Statesman:

_Later that year I also judged the Forward Poetry Prize, and our panel, chaired by the fantastic poet Malika Booker, was slagged off in Private Eye for being too right-on and giving prizes to women._

I wonder what "right-on" means in this context.
Something like "schierati", "partigiani" (e propensi a premiare autrici donne)?

thanks all,
d


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## King Crimson

Questo thread in EO potrebbe darti qualche idea.


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## diait

In that sense, probably "schierati" (pro-feminist/liberal agenda) could do?


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## King Crimson

diait said:


> In that sense, probably "schierati" (pro-feminist/liberal agenda) could do?



Se hai letto quel thread ti sarai reso conto che "schierato/i" da solo non basta, va anche precisato che sono schierati acriticamente con la sinistra (estrema) e il termine deve avere un tono dispregiativo. Fatte queste premesse propenderei per qualcosa come "sinistroide" o "sinitrorso".


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## Mary49

Progressista?


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## King Crimson

Mary49 said:


> Progressista?



Personalmente non lo userei: non è abbastanza forte e, soprattutto, manca di quella carica dispregiativa che secondo me hanno invece i due termini che indicavo. Per lo stesso motivo non userei un termine come "radicale".


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## diait

@King Crimson

pensavo di tentare con un "troppo schierati a sinistra e a favore delle donne"
Ma "sinistrorsi" è ottimo, grazie. Probabilmente ancora meglio. 
Alal fine opterò per la tua soluzione e grazie del link, utilissimo.
d


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## King Crimson

diait said:


> @King Crimson
> 
> pensavo di tentare con un "troppo schierati a sinistra e a favore delle donne"



A parte il fatto di tradurre un termine con una frase (e anche piuttosto lunga), quello che non mi piace di questa soluzione è la stessa cosa che facevo notare a Mary, ossia non è abbastanza dispregiativa. Detto questo, la traduzione è la tua e sei liberissimo di usare quello che ritieni più adeguato


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## rrose17

diait said:


> I wonder what "right-on" means in this context.


Me too.  Too politically correct? Too dogmatic? I have some American friends visiting and they were puzzled as well.


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## diait

As a matter of fact, I am not sure "right-on" is always related to leftist radicals only. Maybe it can be used in a more general sense of "partisan", "ideologic", "dogmatic".
I hope some British native WF user can contribute to this thread...


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## pebblespebbles

Propongo : Oltranzista


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## johngiovanni

King Crimson said:


> va anche precisato che sono schierati acriticamente con la sinistra (estrema) e il termine deve avere un tono dispregiativo.



"Right-on" has been used in this sense.  The "acritical" connotation and the pejorative sense are associated, I think, with the idea of being "eccessivamente 'alla moda'" , "troppo aggiornato", in relation to leftist views on political and social issues.  The expression sounds a little dated to me, like the expression "trendy lefty".  However, in the context of the OP, and the satiric irony of Private Eye (the idea of a bunch of conservative men being aghast - the very idea of awarding prizes to women!), this may well be appropriate.


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## King Crimson

johngiovanni said:


> The expression sounds a little dated to me



That's exactly what other native speakers noted in the thread I linked in post #2:



> It's not much used anymore, except in a derogatory way, alluding to some of the more extreme behavior of those who used the phrase as a slogan nearly 50 years ago.



This could also be the reason why rrose and his friends did not recognize the term.


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## bibiga

Troppo estremista? 
Però forse, con fare dispregiativo, neanche "politically correct" sarebbe tanto male!


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## johngiovanni

King Crimson said:


> That's exactly what other native speakers noted in the thread I linked in post #2:



Sorry, I missed that, KC.
I was wondering whether the idea of "fashionably extreme" or "too fashionably / trendily leftist" could be translated into Italian.


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## King Crimson

johngiovanni said:


> I was wondering whether the idea of "fashionably extreme" or "too fashionably / trendily leftist" could be translated into Italian.



Radical chic, maybe? An English term, actually, but used "as is" in Italian, too. It has a derogatory ring to it and it is dated enough, I think.


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## bibiga

King Crimson said:


> Radical chic, maybe? An English term, actually, but used "as is" in Italian, too. It has a derogatory ring to it and it is dated enough, I think.


E' una parola datata sì..ma che c'entra poco in questo contesto.
I radical chic sono quelli che hanno i soldi ma fanno finta (o meno) di essere comunisti..
Forse allora è meglio dire "troppo femminista" almeno il successivo riferimento alle donne viene di per sé inglobato.

Insisto che probabilmente è meglio dire "politically correct" perché è anche un po' canzonatorio o al massimo "sinistroide" come avevi suggerito in precedenza!


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## Pietruzzo

Proporrei (per scherzo) "troppo sessantottini e femministaioli". Più datato di così...


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## bibiga

Pietruzzo said:


> troppo sessantottini



Ottimo!!


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## diait

As I was reading your last exchanges, I also thought about "radical-chic",

"... ci hanno accusato di essere radical-chic e di votare solo le donne"

Grazie a tutti degli scambi utilissimi, ci sto continuando a ragionare...


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## rrose17

King Crimson said:


> This could also be the reason why rrose and his friends did not recognize the term.


Yes it was the use in that context that left me wondering. Although it can sound dated sometimes I'd say the expression is still widely used but usually to mean _azzeccato_ or dead on/spot on, etc.


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## lentulax

As an Englishman (and a subscriber to _Private Eye_) , I would immediately say, with rrose and bibiga, that 'too right-on' is equivalent (more or less) to 'politically correct'. 'Right-on' does sound a bit dated to me, but I'm not sure about that because it belongs to a pop culture I'm not part of. 'Radical chic' doesn't give quite the same idea , and doesn't work here (the judges of a little-known poetry prize aren't celebrities, or rich, or upper-class) ; it's true that 'radical chic' dates from 1970 (Tom Wolfe), but I don't think myself that it's dated - it's a neat term which is just as useful nowadays as it was when it was coined, perhaps even more so (though I think since Wolfe's first use it may have drifted a bit in the kind of people it refers to) .


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## MR1492

It all depends on when it was written.  This phrase in my youth (many years ago!) meant that it was "spot on", "completely correct", "righteous", etc.  So, I would have to go along with rrose's suggestion in post #21 that _azzeccato_ might work well.

Phil


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## pebblespebbles

By using "azzeccato", which qualifies the action as positive , the sense of her been "slagged off" goes missing...


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## diait

I agree that "radical-chic" is more like "champagne socialist" or something like that.
I wonder if "right-on" might be the same as the American SJW (social justice warrior), self-righteous activist...
Yet, the dated part would be lost.

Thank you all for these very interesting exchanges and the way you are all helping me.
So far, these are some of the Italian terms that came to my mind or came up here:

politicamente corretti
schierati
sinostrorsi /sinistroidi
militanti
partigiani _(ci hanno accusato di essere troppo partigiani e di votare solo le donne...)_
radical-chic _(ci hanno accusato di essere radical-chic che votano solo donne)_
vetero-femministi _(che votano solo donne)_
sessantottini (but I am not sure this might apply to the British aged radical)
fanatici

I suppose the expression _right-on_, here, encompasses a little bit of all these...


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## diait

just came to my mind another term
faziosi

forse è quello giusto
ci hanno accusato di essere troppo faziosi e di premiare solo le donne

che ne dite?


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## bibiga

diait said:


> ci hanno accusato di essere troppo faziosi e di premiare solo le donne


Secondo me va benissimo anche faziosi


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## diait

Deal!
I spent a whole afternoon trying to make sense of right-on, I guess I will settle for faziosi.
Thank you all, again!
Thank you wonderful WR community
diana


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## johngiovanni

"... e la nostra giuria .... è stata aspramente criticata nella rivista satirica _Private Eye _per la sua acritica e pedissequa correttezza politica nel dare dei premi alle donne".


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## lentulax

I have to say that _fazioso_ (if I understand it correctly as partisan) still doesn't seem right to me - 'too right-on' indicates a particular kind of partisanship - a bias towards fashionable liberal ideas. Merriam-Webster , for 'right-on', gives first 'attuned to the spirit of the times' (from 1925), then 'having or supporting liberal or left-wing beliefs and opinions about how people should be treated'. Ironically, Ms Thorn misrepresents _Private Eye_'s criticism, and 'partisan' would have been more accurate : she suggests that PE was simply biased against women ; in fact, the situation was that all three prizes went to women , and two of those women were also POCs (persons of colour) : whilst PE did imply a degree of political correctness in these choices (both in respect of gender and race),  the main line of its attack was on the grounds of partisanship , the chairman of the panel of judges being herself a woman and a POC, whilst a third element of the criticism concerned that fact that some prize-winners and some of the judges shared the same publisher. _Private Eye_ very frequently performs a public service by exposing cases where reviewers rave about books, restaurants etc. without revealing that the books/restaurants are written/owned by their sister or brother-in-law , or cases where newspapers (especially those owned by Murdoch) devote ecstatic articles to (e.g.) film/TV projects which are actually (though this is not stated) being made by another company owned by the newspaper proprietor. I am not saying that in this case PE's criticism was justified, since I haven't read any of the short-list for the Forward prizes.


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## Tellure

*right-on
* *adj  *politicamente corretto(-a)
Dizionario Reverso per smartphone

*right-on*

a coll (_di persone_) a posto, progressista, modernista.
right-on: traduzione in italiano - Dizionari - La Repubblica


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## johngiovanni

Lentulax said: "a bias towards fashionable liberal ideas."

Agreed, and that is what I was driving at in posts 12 and 15.  The problem is how to convey it in Italian.  I went for "acritica e pedissequa" as I thought it might suggest a slavish following of current ideologies, and was also mindful of KC's "acriticamente" in post 4.  I continue to think that the ironical "accusation" was about a perceived excessive correctness.  The irony - and the humour -of the _Private Eye _piece relates to the idea that giving prizes to women (under any circumstances)  is an example of excessive correctness. (As, in the normal, non-satirical, world that we modern readers live in, we fully understand that women often do deserve to win prizes).

Having said that, Tellure's "progressista" is interesting.

Perhaps: "... e la nostra giuria .... è stata aspramente criticata nella rivista satirica _Private Eye _per essere troppo progressista nel dare dei premi alle donne."


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## Mary49

johngiovanni said:


> Having said that, Tellure's "progressista" is interesting. Perhaps: "... e la nostra giuria .... è stata aspramente criticata nella rivista satirica _Private Eye _per essere troppo progressista nel dare dei premi alle donne."


See my post #5


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## johngiovanni

Sorry, Mary, I was almost asleep!


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## Tellure

Giusto per completare il quadro, un paio di definizioni:

*right-on*
  (_British_)
if people or their opinions are right-on, they believe everyone should be treated in a fair way and they are careful not to offend anyone because of their sex, colour, age, etc. She wrote a very right-on book about attitudes to fat people.
_Cambridge Idioms Dictionary, 2nd ed_
right-on

*right onadjective*
 UK  /ˌraɪt ˈɒn/ US  /ˌraɪt ˈɑːn/ often disapproving
beliefs that are characteristic of someone who supports the political left
right on Meaning in the Cambridge English Dictionary


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## King Crimson

johngiovanni said:


> The problem is how to convey it in Italian



Indeed (and thanks to lentulax too, for his very informative post). I doubt we have single term in Italian that can keep together all the different meanings (leftist and/or fashionable liberal, unthinking / indoctrinated, politically correct, partisan) the definition of "right-on" encompasses, with any one of these meanings possibly being predominant in a specific context. Last but not least, let's not forget that -- I quote from a post in the related EO thread -- “the term is derisory and humorous and most often used by the right wingers”, so the prospective translation should retain this feature, if warranted by the context.
With this in mind I think that none of the terms suggested so far can work stand-alone, as they just cover part of the definition and, in some cases, can even be misleading: that’s the case, for example, of "fazioso" or "partigiano" (in fact you can certainly be a right-winger partisan).
So, perhaps, what we need here is an expression: borrowing from jg's (and others’) suggestions I think that “troppo progressista e di parte / fazioso” could work: though not perfect – too formal to convey the derisory nuance of “right-on” – its meaning seems reasonably close to what we’re looking for in the given context.

EDIT: reference corrected


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## Lorena1970

*right-on*
adjective _informal, often derogatory:_ in keeping with fashionable liberal or left-wing opinions and values: the right-on music press. OED

Dato il contesto, che specifica che la critica è legata all'aver dato un premo a una donna, mi verrebbe da dire "_filofemminista_" anche se il significato è filolaburista - poichè siamo in UK . Se fosse usato in contesto USA probabilmente sarebbe filodemocratico.


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## diait

lentulax said:


> I have to say that _fazioso_ (if I understand it correctly as partisan) still doesn't seem right to me - 'too right-on' indicates a particular kind of partisanship - a bias towards fashionable liberal ideas. Merriam-Webster , for 'right-on', gives first 'attuned to the spirit of the times' (from 1925), then 'having or supporting liberal or left-wing beliefs and opinions about how people should be treated'. Ironically, Ms Thorn misrepresents _Private Eye_'s criticism, and 'partisan' would have been more accurate : she suggests that PE was simply biased against women ; in fact, the situation was that all three prizes went to women , and two of those women were also POCs (persons of colour) : whilst PE did imply a degree of political correctness in these choices (both in respect of gender and race),  the main line of its attack was on the grounds of partisanship , the chairman of the panel of judges being herself a woman and a POC, whilst a third element of the criticism concerned that fact that some prize-winners and some of the judges shared the same publisher. _Private Eye_ very frequently performs a public service by exposing cases where reviewers rave about books, restaurants etc. without revealing that the books/restaurants are written/owned by their sister or brother-in-law , or cases where newspapers (especially those owned by Murdoch) devote ecstatic articles to (e.g.) film/TV projects which are actually (though this is not stated) being made by another company owned by the newspaper proprietor. I am not saying that in this case PE's criticism was justified, since I haven't read any of the short-list for the Forward prizes.



Thank you for all your very informative posts, lentulax.
I agree, but there is no perfect Italian term to convey all that, unless you choose to explain and elaborate a bit.
Yet, I think that if you read The New Statesman and Thorn's column, that specific kind of partisanship is probably implied.

ciao!
d

p.s. The Italian edition of Tracey Thorn's column appears on the online pages of a magazine whose guidelines for translators are basically boiled down to one: Keep it simple!


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## Tellure

johngiovanni said:


> Perhaps: "... e la nostra giuria .... è stata aspramente criticata nella rivista satirica _Private Eye _per essere troppo progressista nel dare dei premi alle donne."



E se provassimo con un avverbio?

"Ottusamente/ciecamente progressista", o magari perfino "fintamente progressista"?

Ma niente humour, ahimè...


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## london calling

I haven't heard the expression in years, but it immediately brought to mind a terribly ernest, liberal do-gooder who takes political correctness to the most ridiculous extremes. 

Nulla di finto, però: queste persone ci credono davvero nelle loro idee liberal-progressiste.


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## Tellure

london calling said:


> I haven't heard the expression in years, but it immediately brought to mind a terribly ernest, liberal do-gooder who takes political correctness to the most ridiculous extremes. *Un po' alla Boldrini, insomma! *
> 
> Nulla di finto, però: queste persone ci credono davvero nelle loro idee liberal-progressiste. *Ok*


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## diait

london calling said:


> I haven't heard the expression in years, but it immediately brought to mind a terribly ernest, liberal do-gooder who takes political correctness to the most ridiculous extremes.
> 
> Nulla di finto, però: queste persone ci credono davvero nelle loro idee liberal-progressiste.



london calling, you read my mind.

As for the thread, other Italian words that came to my mind were:
indignados, barricaderi
but they might be more useful in other context, probably. And they would still not convey the right English mix

ciao!
diana
p.s. the translation already came out, and the copy-editor went for "fazioso". Thanks again, you all


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## Lorena1970

diait said:


> p.s. The Italian edition of Tracey Thorn's column appears on the online pages of a magazine whose guidelines for translators are basically boiled down to one: Keep it simple!





> p.s. the translation already came out, and the copy-editor went for "fazioso". Thanks again, you all



Solo per sottolineare l'importanza del contesto. Se le informazioni fornite fossero state chiare e articolate, probabilmente ci sarebbe voluto ben meno per arrivare alla conclusione. E' ovvio che nel contesto di una giuria presieduta da una donna e della quale TT è membro, il premio assegnato a una donna può essere accusato di essere "fazioso", ovvero "di parte". Ma senza informazioni appropriate su cosa si dibatte nell'articolo etc................


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## diait

If one googles the excerpt I quoted above, Tracey Thorn's column on the New Statesman comes up, and there you have more context.
Which is what probably some of the contributors to this thread did, before taking part in the discussion.
But I'll be more specific next time. Thanks.
d


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## Lorena1970

diait said:


> If one googles the excerpt I quoted above, Tracey Thorn's column on the New Statesman comes up, and there you have more context. _Correct, but properly explain about the subject and add the link is always a good idea_
> Which is what probably some of the contributors to this thread did, before taking part in the discussion. Maybe, though I am not sure about that, as reading the piece "fazioso" or "di parte" would have come up to mind, whilst almost all comments suggest "sinistrorso" or "estremo" et al...
> But I'll be more specific next time. Thanks. You are welcome!
> d


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