Friday, February 10, 2023

Translating the title of Boris Lurie's collected writing, "Geschriebigtes Gedichtiges"

The two words in the title of Boris Lurie's collected writing, "Geschriebigtes Gedichtiges", are nouns derived from past participles (as the -tes endings and the ge- prefixes show); those participles are themselves derived from two unusual verbs: not the common "schreiben" (to write) and "dichten" (to write poetry) but neologisms formed from them with the not uncommon "-igen" ending for verbs: "schreibigen" and "dichtigen". So translate these two words, I need nouns that can stand alone and are based on forms of verbs that might themselves be unusual. I brainstormed many clumsy possibilities before finally coming up with something that I'm happy to say that I'm rather pleased with: "Pennings Poemings". (Andrew Shields, #111words, 10 February 2023)


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