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July 12, 2013

Strange But True!

Q. “It's a Bird... It's a Plane... It's Overman.” Wait a minute! What happened to Superman?

A. The English word “superman” appeared in the early 1900s as a translation — a so-called “loan translation” — of the German word “Ubermensch,” featured prominently in philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche's writings. Going beyond borrowing a term from another language or molding it to fit the new language, loan translation instead involves literal word-for-word translation, says Anu Garg on his A.Word.A.Day website. So “when Ubermensch landed on English shores, it was translated as superman though it could very well have been aboveman or overman” (from “uber” for “above,” “beyond,” etc., and “mensch” for “human”).


 
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