# Croatian (BCS) herniating gamble



## sauge

Well, I'm resourceful these days, it seems. What does "herniating gamble" mean in the following:​ 
"Never again would the rulers of the Second Rome nerve themselves for a herniating gamble to hold on to the lands lost to the Germanic barbarians by its dead sister empire in the West."​ 
Vladari Drugoga Rima nikada više neće biti spremni za herniating gamble da bi za svoju mrtvu sestru, Zapadno carstvo, zadržali zemlje što su ih izgubili od germanskih barbara. ​

I have to admit, I'm a little afraid to ask you this, because it looks like an easy structure, but I just can't see what it means. ​ 
I'll be grateful, even for some scornful help. ​


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## sokol

Wow, what a word!
I had to look it up in the dictionary where I discovered that there's only "hernia" which is a quite unpleasant health condition, and that it seems "herniated" is used to describe this medical condition - and nothing else.

So this author, quite creatively, used special medical terminology as a spontanuous metaphor; I've checked three big monolingual dictionaries - it seems that a figurative use of "herniating" (like here) is not common at all.

Anyway, "herniating" simply should mean that if Constantinople would have tried to re-capture the West dominated by Germanic tribes they would have risked "crippling hernia" - or in other words, they would have risked crippling Eastern Rome.
(In my opinion this metaphor is not very lucky in English, and not best style anyway, but alas - here you're asking about a translation only.  - Also, the Second Constantinople indeed *did *try to regain the West, and even succeeded partially, for a short period of time, so this statement even seems to be wrong, but this just as a sidenote ... oh right, now I understand: this is part of a historical work describing the aftermath of that disaster, so that sentence does make sense at last. ;-)

Hopefully you can come up with a better metaphor in BCS; and with that I mean that you better not choose "bruh", I don't think that this metaphor would work better in BCS than it does in English.


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## Majalj

zamorni rizik


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## sauge

Indeed, this chapter is about Justinian's reconquista of Rome, written in a funny and interesting way, with many details (not like most history books ), so it's been a pleasure translating it, except when dealing with puns, colloquial and picturesque expressions, such as this one.

Will I be right if I transpose this as "arduous risk" (a risky effort that could cause hernia?)

(Actually, I did find "herniate", but it didn't have any figurative meanings either.)


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## sauge

Thank you, Majalj!


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## sokol

Well, "zamorni" is probably as good as it gets, but this is much more straightforward and thus not figurative at all. It fits as far as meaning is concerned - because that's obviously what the author wanted to say - but it hasn't the unusual-ness (and humoristic tone) of the original.

But again, I cannot offer a better solution.


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## sauge

I'm thinking "polomiti se od muke", "podmetnuti grbaču", and so on. 

Vladari Drugoga Rima nikada više neće skupiti hrabrost da stave na bubanj vlastitu grbaču kako bi za mrtvu sestru, Zapadno carstvo, zadržali zemlje što su ih izgubili od germanskih barbara.

(I know very well that the word I'm looking for is "iskilaviti se", but I'm not sure what Croatian language purists would have to say about it, so I'll leave it for now.)

 I usually come up with a better solution after some time. Thank you very much for your help, Sokol! It's always easier when you know what a sentence actually means.


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## Athaulf

sauge said:


> Well, I'm resourceful these days, it seems. What does "herniating gamble" mean in the following:​
> "Never again would the rulers of the Second Rome nerve themselves for a herniating gamble to hold on to the lands lost to the Germanic barbarians by its dead sister empire in the West."​



Here is my guess. The rulers of the Eastern Roman Empire (the Second Rome is Constantinople, of course) realized that the reconquered Western parts of the Empire were in a strategically hopeless position, and that they should endeavor to keep only the territories within certain reasonably defensible limits. The adjective "herniating" refers to unsuccessful military interventions in which the troops and other resources were sent outside of these limits and wasted pointlessly, just like hernia that occurs when a part of some tissue protrudes outside the natural limits in which it's supposed to be contained in a healthy organism.
​ That's the only reasonable interpretation I see. I agree it's not a very successful metaphor, and there's no way to convey it in translation. I think you can just write whatever you like here; it certainly won't make the text worse.


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## sauge

Thanks, Athaulf!  What do you think, is the verb "iskilaviti se" acceptable in Croatian language, given that the translation will be published?


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## Athaulf

sauge said:


> Thanks, Athaulf!  What do you think, is the verb "iskilaviti se" acceptable in Croatian language, given that the translation will be published?



Not really. I'd say it sounds too much like slang. I would abandon the hernia metaphor altogether; I really don't see any appropriate Croatian expressions. Maybe a good replacement would be something about bleeding. For example:

_Vladari Drugog Rima više nikad neće skupiti hrabrost da riskiraju iskrvarenje svog Carstva kako bi zadržali posjed nad zemljama što ih je mrtvo _[pokojno?]_ sestrinsko _[možda bolje "bratsko"?]_ Carstvo na Zapadu izgubilo u provalama germanskih barbara. 

_


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## Athaulf

When I think about it, unlike English, Croatian doesn't have a tradition of universally referring to countries as feminine. Thus, I think this would be my best attempt:

_Vladari Drugog Rima nikad __više __neće skupiti hrabrost da riskiraju iskrvarenje svog Carstva kako bi zadržali posjed nad zemljama što ih je pokojno bratsko __Carstvo na Zapadu izgubilo u korist germanskih barbara. 
_
I think this is as close to a literal Croatian translation as possible without sounding very unnatural. Note also the latter part of the sentence. Your original formulation_ "...za svoju mrtvu sestru..."_ isn't very precise. The "sister" was already nonexistent by that time, so it wasn't possible to do anything _for her_ -- the sentence speaks about the struggle for control of her former possessions.


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## sauge

Thanks again, Athaulf!


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## Majalj

Neizvjesno kilavljenje?


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