Sasha Staggs > Recent Status Updates

Languages aren't just made of words. They're modes of looking at the world. They're the keys to civilization. And that's knowledge worth killing for.”

“The verb translate has slightly different connotations in each language. The English, Spanish, and French words - translate, traducir, and traduire - come from the Latin translat, which means ‘to carry across’.
But we get something different once we move past Romance languages.“

“No translation can perfectly carry over the meaning of the original. … Humboldt, for instance, argues that words are connected to the concepts they describe by something invisible, intangible - a mystical realm of meaning and ideas, emanating from a pure mental energy which only takes form when we ascribe it an imperfect signifier.”

“When we say a word or phrase is untranslatable, we mean that it lacks a precise equivalent in another language. Even if its meaning partially captured in several words or sentences, something is still lost - something that falls into semantic gaps which are, of course, created by cultural differences in lived experience. … translation involved some degree of warp and distortion.”

“The translator needs to be translator, literary critic, and poet all at once … . The poet runs untrammelled across the meadow. The translator dances in shackles."

“…translators do not so much deliver a message as they rewrite the original. And herein lies the difficulty—rewriting is still writing, and writing always reflects the author's ideology and biases. After all, the Latin translatio means "to carry across". Translation involves a spatial dimension—a literal transportation of texts across conquered territory, words delivered like spices from an alien land.”

“We hear the muffled rumble of the front only as very distant thunder, bumblebees droning by quite drown it. Around us stretches the flowery meadow. The grasses sway their tall spears; the white butterflies flutter around and float on the soft warm wind of the late summer.” 𓂃 ࣪˖ ִֶָ𐀔

“The sky was soft like cloth and birds ran over it in long threads” 𓂃 ོ𓂃 ོ ོ 𓂃 ོོ

“You can teach a viper to eat from your hands, but you cannot take away how much it likes to bite.” 𓆗

“‘Aiaia.’ I tasted the sounds. They were soft, folding quietly as wings in the darkened air.” ⊹ ࣪ ˖ ໒꒱

“Hermes’ mind was a thousand times sharper and more swift. It shone like light upon the waves, dazzling to blindness” ⊹ ࣪ ﹏𓊝﹏𓂁﹏⊹ ࣪ ˖

“As if he heard me, he smiled, and his face was like the sun.” 𖤓

“Words can be like X-rays if you use them properly—they’ll go through anything. You read and you’re pierced.”

“Words can be like X-rays if you use them properly—they’ll go through anything. You read and you’re pierced”

“Your money draws ‘em and you’re absolutely helpless. They have all the law and all the machinery on their side. Tell everybody, when you write your story, that they’re scalping our souls out here.”

“The sky is low and woolen out the window… Dublin is extraordinarily beautiful to her in wet weather, the way grey stone darkens to black, and rain moves over the grass and whispers on slick roof tiles. Raincoats glistening in the undersea color of street lamps. Rain silver as loose change in the glare of traffic.” ⋆｡°·⛆

“Outside her breath rises in a fine mist, and the snow keeps falling, like a ceaseless repetition of the same infinitesimally small mistake.”₊˚ ❆

"Outside it's still snowing. The exterior world looks like an old TV screen badly tuned. Visual noise breaks the landscape into soft fragments." ⋆❆˚｡₊⊹❅⋆

“The sky is a thrilling chlorine-blue, stretched taut and featureless like silk.” ﾟ☀︎｡