• protist@mander.xyzEnglish
    12·
    3 days ago

    Travel writer Rick Steves recorded a taxi driver in Tehran exclaiming “Death to traffic!” in English, explaining that “when something frustrates us and we have no control over it, this is what we say”. Steves compares the phrase to non-literal use of the word damn in American English.

    There’s definitely a cultural translation issue here

    • lmmarsano@lemmynsfw.comEnglish
      21·
      3 days ago

      Tehranian’s talking about death to inanimate abstractions that must be interpreted figuratively have an excuse that competent English writers who understand coherent literal meanings do not. We don’t use “death to” this way: the right word is “fuck”, eg, “fuck traffic!”, “fuck Israel!”.