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Subject:Re: luminous vs. light as adjectives From:Robert Bononno <bononno -at- ACF2 -dot- NYU -dot- EDU> Date:Sat, 12 Feb 1994 19:59:26 -0500
On Fri, 11 Feb 1994, Paul David Marvel wrote:
> What I was trying to illustrate in the original post was a useful
> translation trick. Often, if you look up a word in a French-only
> dictionary like the _Larousse_ or _Little Robert_ and read the seperate
> definitions, you can think of the proper English equivalent for each . You
> can then create a rule to guide you while translating.
Paul this is a useful technique but not always foolproof. For example, we
have the following:
(accents omitted because I can't type them!)
densite lumineux = luminous density
intensite lumineuse = luminous intensity
onde lumineuse = light wave
rayon lumineux = light ray
unite d'intensite lumineuse = light unit
rendement lumineux = luminous efficiency
etc.
So it has to be used with some caution. Of course, if you have a
_reliable_ technical dictionary, you go with that. Otherwise you're on
your own.
My question was really whether or not these different usages
(translations) reflect different underlying physical concepts...and if
English usage accounts for this difference.
