That’s probably because “parodie” is invariable “Une parodie”, there cannot be a masculine version of it. While transvestite and transsexual can translate into both masculine and feminine form, depending on context (subject).

Too bad I can’t translate it myself, I’d violate their copyright laws or something. I’m fluent in both French and English, French being my first language.

For the record, a male-to-female transsexual would be called “transsexuelle”, while a female-to-male transsexual would be called “transsexuel”. The problem is that many people, including doctors, will inverse them (either maliciously, or by ignorance), causing unnecessary confusion on top of it all.

The most laughable thing that’s been said to me, by the government, employment section, is that my transition was understood as “a change of sexual orientation”, I just laughed out loud in her face.

BTW, babelfish gave an english-to-french translation of “travesty” as “parodie.” I was curious, so I tried it. For whatever reason, it didn’t translate “transvestite” at all. Same with “transexual.”

I am so thrilled that you are writing about this!

Kudos to you.

(Am relatively new to the blogging world, so forgive my Net illiteracy!).

As a professional translator, I certainly appreciate your efforts.

Thanks, Amp, for bringing this to a wider audience.

But, of course, the word “travestie” actually does mean both. It is a fact of translation that English simply has more words than many other languages do, so a translator from French will have to make numerous decisions about which English word to translate a French one from dozens of possibilities.

Since all reading — even in one’s own language — is in some degree an interpretation, one wonders how much the original translation “got it wrong”, and how much is that a past reader would make different assumptions about meanings and intentions than a modern reader would.

It is entirely possible that the original author intended both of travesty/tranvestite in French, but there is no way to present the “pun” in translation, so a translator has to make a choice. Choosing “transvestite” is the more charitable choice, but not necessarily the only one.

It looks like the translation is not just “bad” in the sense of unsophisticated, inaccurate, etc, but “bad” in the loaded language of the time. The use of “travesty” for example, is probably some of both, because it is a common term (now pejorative) for transsexual in some romance language countries. Translating it - as a false cognate - directly gives it a different if no less pejorative meaning.

On the devil’s advocate side of things, I could see why the publisher would not be very interested in translating the book if there is not a big market. Translation is incredibly expensive, quality translation more so, and doing things like poetry and philosophy requires a huge amount of work.

You didn’t say anything about having a good motive for signing!