As a result, numerous entries and usage notes, wafting in the sociological winds and whims (прихоть, причуда) of the day, are inconsistent and gratuitous, undermining any pretence of rigor, let alone authority.

[1979Alena]

Помогите, плз, с переводом предложения

As a result, numerous entries and usage notes, wafting in the sociological winds and whims of the day, are inconsistent and gratuitous, undermining any pretence of rigor, let alone authority.

[lesdn]

1979Alena
Да Вы уже всю сразу статью из "Экономиста" вывешивайте, а то с контекстом у вновь прибывших проблемы возникнуть могут.
:)

[1979Alena]

Defining Womyn (and Others)
Random House's new dictionary is gender neutral, politically correct -- and an English-lover's disappointment
By JESSE BIRNBAUM
SUBSCRIBE TO TIMEPRINTE-MAILMORE BY AUTHOR

Dictionaries are like watches; the worst is better than none, and the best cannot be expected to go quite true.

Samuel Johnson should be living at this hour; the English language has need of him. Though he was never at a loss for words, the great lexicographical drudge would probably be confounded to read the new Random House Webster's College Dictionary. It is bugled as "the New Definition of Dictionary," the "newest, biggest and best."

Newest, yes; biggest, yes -- for a college dictionary (180,000 entries). As for best, it may be said that this dictionary goes like Dr. Johnson's watches. It will also tick off a lot of people.

Those who believe dictionaries should not merely reflect the times but also protect English from the mindless assaults of the trendy will find that the Random House Webster's lends authority to scores of questionable usages, many of them tinged with "politically correct" views. Purists will fume, but what is worse is that such permissiveness can only invite a further tattering of the language -- and already has.

At its core, the Random House Webster's is a laudable achievement, the work of many excellent minds. It is in the core's wrapping that trouble lies and English suffers erosion, mainly because the editors choose to be "descriptive, not prescriptive." As a result, numerous entries and usage notes, wafting in the sociological winds and whims of the day, are inconsistent and gratuitous, undermining any pretense of rigor, let alone authority.

Most notable in these pages is the influence of special-interest groups, prominently feminists and minorities. They are saluted, and placated, to the point where judgment is often skewed, and where tin-eared or casually invented words and terms are given approval simply because they are fashionable. "We tried our best," says executive editor Sol Steinmetz in justification, "to infuse some social significance into the language along the lines of what sociolinguists do."

An added essay, Avoiding Sexist Language, offers some useful gender-neutral suggestions (firefighter instead of fireman). Yet browsers will find as well the stamp of acceptance on the dreadful herstory ("an alternative form to distinguish or emphasize the particular experience of women"); the execrable womyn ("alternative spelling to avoid the suggestion of sexism perceived in the sequence m-e-n"); and the absurd wait-person (waiter or waitress) and waitron ("a person of either sex who waits on tables"). Future lexicons, perhaps, will give us waitoid (a person of indeterminate sex who waits on tables).

Straining even more to avoid giving offense, except to good usage, the < dictionary offers comfort to very short people (though not very tall ones) with heightism ("discrimination or prejudice based on a person's stature, esp. discrimination against short people"); and to very fat people (but not very thin ones) with weightism ("bias or discrimination against people who are overweight"). Omitted, fortunately, are such high-fad content terms as lookism (bias against people because of their appearance), ableism (bias against the handicapped) or differently abled (alternative to handicapped).

Scores of new entries, however, demonstrate the extent to which rotten cliches and cute formulations can worm their way into acceptance. A celebutante, for example, is someone who seeks the limelight through association with celebrities; to Mirandize (verb), as in "Mirandize the perpetrator," refers to the Miranda rule that requires cops to warn arrestees (noun) of their legal rights. As might be expected, the ungrammatical use of hopefully ("Hopefully we will get to the show on time") receives Random's blessing: "Although some strongly object . . . ((hopefully)) is standard in all varieties of speech and writing."

Even the word Webster's has succumbed to the loose use of language. Though Noah Webster produced his first American dictionary in 1806, his name never appeared in the title of his editions until after his death. Webster's has since passed into generic usage, and any publisher can slap the word into the titles of its own lexicons.

The reluctance of Random House's editors to make tough, perhaps even unpopular, judgments is an ominous sign. It encourages the self-appointed watchdogs who bark at purported offenses and demand revisions that often border on the ridiculous. Their concern is not only a desire to expel genuinely vicious or hateful words from the vocabulary; their activity is calculated mainly to protect the sensitivities of minority groups, even from objectionable phrases that bear little or no relationship to discrimination or racism. What counts, say the watchdogs, is not the origin of a term but how a person feels about it. Hence waitron.

If these watchdogs get their way, other words and phrases, now listed approvingly by Random House, may suffer the same baroque fate. For example, some feminists have objected to the word seminal, which refers to something that is original and influential. They argue that seminal, like seminar and seminary, fails the gender-neutral test because it derives from semen, the Latin word for seed. So much for logic.

It is just as well that the English language, so welcoming to precision and so rich with metaphor and vitality, continues to be a growing wonder. Like many living things, it needs constant pruning to flourish. The Random House version of Webster's too could use some pruning -- or maybe a good watch repairperson.

[varism]

ИМХО В результате, многочисленные данные и используемые примечания (комментарии), навеянные социологическими ветрами и пристрастиями дня, являются противоречивыми и неуместными, подрывая любую видимость ригоризма, не говоря уже об авторитетности источника.

[lesdn]

Вот коллегам на разбор
Дальше нужно или сами :))
Defining Womyn (and Others)
Новый словарь издательства Random House – нейтрален в отношении пола, политики, а также консистенция разочарований поклонников английского языка
Словари сродни часовому механизму: плохой – лучше, чем ничего, а хороший никогда не покажет вам точного времени.

Жаль, что Самюэля Джонсона нет с нами сейчас, он очень нужен современному английскому языку. Хоть он никогда не терялся перед словами, коса великого лексикографа нашла бы на камень при чтении нового издания Random House Webster's College Dictionary. Последний провозгласили как словарь нового типа: самый новый, самый большой, самый лучший.

Самый новый – да, самый лучший – да (словарь содержит 180 тысяч статей). Но, что касается самого лучшего, можно сказать, что он отстал от времени как часы профессора Джонсона. Многих людей ожидает разочарование.

И именно тех, кто считает, что словари должны не просто идти в ногу со временем, но и ограждать английский язык от необдуманных вторжений модных словечек, с удивлением обнаружат, что издательство Random House включило в словарь Webster большое количество таковых, да еще снабдив их комментарием «политически грамотное употребление». Борцы за чистоту нравов нервно курят в коридоре, но что хуже – такая позиция вседозволенности может привести к обнищанию языка, да это уже и происходит.

По своей сути словарь Webster – качественный коллективный продукт многих выдающихся умов. И здесь же зиждется проблема – английский язык страдает от переизбытка, большей частью от того, что редакторы статей идут по описательному пути, нежели чем по наставительному. В результате мы получаем множество статей и комментариев – противоречивых и неточных, составленных в угоду нашему времени, лишенных четкости определения, не говоря уже об авторитете.

На правах имха

[serofima]

перевожу данный текст, так же возникли трудности..

[нихтшиссен]

так же ж преодолевайте их!... смело впириод!...