Learning Haskell and FP

Frank Atanassow franka@cs.uu.nl
Fri, 29 Dec 2000 14:31:01 +0100


Benjamin L. Russell wrote (on 28-12-00 17:35 -0500):

> > >> "Furuike ya!  Kawazu tobikomu mizu no oto."  --Matsuo Basho
> > [..] Is it OK if I show off and steal some thunder? :)

So much for that idea...!

> >   "(It's) An old pond! The sound of water steadily dripping in..."
> 
> Actually, if I may add, the translation I remember was the following:
> 
>    "[It's] An old pond!  The sound of water as the frog jumps in...."
> 
> "Kawazu" means "frog," and "tobikomu" means "(to) jump in."

That makes sense. I was guessing that "kawazu" was the old form of modern
"kawarazu" (`without changing'). Modern `frog' is "kaeru", though, and the
transitive form of "kawaru" (`change') is also "kaeru", so I suppose there is
some linguistic relationship. "tobikomu" makes much more sense this way too. I
thought it was a figurative usage, but it still didn't sound right...

-- 
Frank Atanassow, Information & Computing Sciences, Utrecht University
Padualaan 14, PO Box 80.089, 3508 TB Utrecht, Netherlands
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