Voting Thread (2015 Translation Bake-off Main Event)
 

2015 ERATOSPHERE TRANSLATION BAKE-OFF
VOTING THREAD

All members of Eratosphere have until noon (Pacific Standard Time) on Wednesday, 18 November, to cast their ballots here for this year's Translation Bake-off winners.


Step 1: Evaluate (and, one hopes, comment on) the eleven finalists, whose threads are listed and linked below:

Bake-off Dish A--"I Am a Man", French lyrics by Zazie

Bake-off Dish B--"The Song of the Insufficiency of Human Endeavor", German lyrics by Bertolt Brecht

Bake-off Dish C--"The Song of the Long-gone Ladies", French lyrics by François Villon

Bake-off Dish D--Two songs with "Alas, alas!" ("I pine away night and day" and "I had thought Janneton"), French lyrics by Molière and Pierre Perrin, respectively

Bake-off Dish E--"The Black Cat", French lyrics by Aristide Bruant

Bake-off Dish F--"Oh Ola, Ola, My Love, My Own", Norwegian lyrics by Anonymous

Bake-off Dish G--"Ne Me Quitte Pas", French lyrics by Jacques Brel

Bake-off Dish H--"Ode to Cassandra", French lyrics by Pierre Ronsard

Bake-off Dish I--"Sister Dear", German lyrics by Anonymous

Bake-off Dish J--"The Ballad of Sexual Dependency", German lyrics by Bertolt Brecht

Bake-off Dish K--"Belle de Nuit", French lyrics by Pascal Aligon

[A special note to the non-finalists: Thank you so much for participating. The Top Secret DG's comments and Top Secret Yodeler's performances of your translations will be made available to you privately via Alex Pepple, sometime after the finalist votes are tallied and posted.]


Step 2: Decide how to allocate your six votes among the candidates.

Each voter has six votes. You may allocate these as you see fit, so long as no entry receives more than three votes from you.

Examples:

You may give one vote to each of your six favorites.
You may give two votes to each of your three favorites.
You may give three votes to each of your two favorites.
You may rank your top three and reward them with votes accordingly, giving three votes to your #1 favorite, two votes to your #2 favorite, and one vote to your #3 favorite.

Other voting permutations are also possible.

However, if you try to award more than three votes to the same entry, only three of those votes will be tallied.

Likewise, any votes cast by any competitor for his or her own entry will not be tallied.


Step 3: Post your ballot by replying to this thread by noon (PST), 18 November 2015.

Your ballot consists of text identifying your favorites (by Bake-off Dish IDs and/or title words in any language), followed by the number of votes you are assigning to each. The following is a sample ballot:

-----------------------------------------------------

Dish Y--"Silent Night" (3 votes)
Dish Z--"O Fortuna" (1 vote)
Dish X--"Gaudeamus Igitur" (1 vote)
Dish W--"Sarasponda" (1 vote)

-----------------------------------------------------

Ballots cast after the deadline will not be tallied, even if the discussion thread is not locked.

PLEASE CONFINE ANY IDENTITY-GUESSING TO THE ADJACENT IDENTITY-GUESSING THREAD. Some folks don't want to see any spoilers until they have already cast their own ballots.

Dish J, "The Ballad of Sexual Dependency" - 2 votes
Dish A, "I Am a Man" - 1 vote
Dish E, "The Black Cat" - 1 vote
Dish H, "Ode to Cassandra" - 1 vote
Dish I, "Sister Dear" - 1 vote

It was nice to get six votes, since so many of these translations are good. Even so, it was hard to choose. I will give just one extra vote to my top choice in order to reward more of the others, which I have listed in my order of preference.

J Sexual Dependency (2 votes)
B Human Endeavor (1 vote)
A I am a Man (1 vote)
E The Black Cat (1 vote)
H Ode to Cassandra (1 vote)

I will just say that some of the others were really nicely done, but did not seem equally challenging. I was most impressed by those that demonstrated clever rhyming, clarity, and an accurate reflection of the tone of the original (as far as I could tell what that tone was).

Susan

B The Song of the Insufficiency of Human Endeavor (2 votes)
E The Black Cat (2 votes)
I Sister Dear (1 vote)
J Sexual Dependency (1 vote)

I liked many others, but each had a flaw that was just enough to bother me.

From the get-go I was confused about the raison d'être of this year's translation bake-off.

Was one supposed to take a poem (in the public domain or with permission from the poet and composer), translate it into English as faithfully as possible (Y and DG comments frequently refer to the beauties of keeping to the rhyme scheme, including feminine and masculine rhyming), and then, only finally, ensuring that the faithfully translated version be "singable" in the tune provided via Internet sites, sheet music, etc. ?

Or, was one supposed first to consider the tune and take as many liberties with the original text as one wanted (liberties which were at times praised and at others nixed by the TSDG) in order to make the translation singable?

I believe others may have been confused as well, thus the paucity of entries for the first deadline and, perhaps, what Alex called the lackluster participation. Or were the concept and execution just too much of a challenge?

That said, I am in absolute awe of the Yodeler. Not only is she most definitely fully versed in music theory, her voice hauntingly beautiful, but the amount of time and effort she most certainly put into the eleven recordings, at times even necessitating the use of sheet music, deserves the utmost admiration, praise and gratitude. I would venture the lovely voice belongs to Claudia Gary, though I did think of Maryann Corbett and Kate Fitzpatrick Lantry as well.

As for voting, as Martin said above, each of the French to English translations had a flaw (or more than one) that "bothered" me. Of course, I can't comment on the German or Norwegian entries which, no doubt, had their own problems.

All I can do, then, is heartily congratulate each and every contestant, whether finalist or not, thank the TSDG and Yodeler once again, and respectfully abstain from voting this time around.

E 3
a 2
b 1

It occurred to me that we may have some entrants in this Bake-Off who are new to the process, and don't know that traditionally the entrants themselves have made an effort to comment on most, if not all, of the other entries and to vote on those that they prefer. No one is expected to know all of the languages involved, but that is what the literal translations are for. The DG and the singer have gone to so much trouble to make this an entertaining and useful event that it seems a shame if the entrants themselves don't do their part. In the past, there were not even prizes for the winners, so everyone participated for the honor of it, but also for the extremely useful advice that they could get from one another. It's not just about winning; it is about playing the game.

Susan

E The Black Cat - 3
B Human Endeavor - 2
J The Ballad of Sexual Dependency - 1

First, apologies for my slow and patchy participation -- it's been my busiest week of the year at work, and my niece was also visiting until this morning so I was out every night. It's been great fun anyway, and I'm bowled over by the yodeler's fantastic efforts. My vote:
E The Black Cat - 3
J Sexual Dependency - 2
B Human Endeavour - 1

3 votes for E, The Black Cat.
I admit I'm influenced by the charm of the original (which I'd never heard before), but picking good material is half the battle, right?
I love the rhymes and the jaunty language, especially "darkish/larkish" and "hoosegow." The translation finds its voice and stays within in it.

1 vote for A, "I am a Man."
Lots of cleverness here. Some of the best parts are the freest, like "look across the freak show rail." Sometimes the freedom does not hit its target, e.g. the over-translation "bitchin' wheels" for "belle voiture." I like "consumer crap," but "up to the gills" then kind of overloads the line with idiom. Also, "flip side" doesn't mean the same thing as "opposite." All in all, though, I like the tone and the inventiveness.