I realize he’s Pakistani and English is not his first language. As someone else said upthread, his posts are unclear because he is not explaining himself fully and because his metaphors are bizarre, not because his English is poor. His English is fine. And not that it really matters, but I’m skeptical of the translation theory. A site that translates Urdu into poor English would probably also translate English into bad Urdu, but Abisafyan is not having any problems understanding what is being said to him.
Nevertheless, the stand-up comic theory is compelling. If you were to translate an American stand-up comic’s political material into flawless Urdu, a Pakistani audience still would find it incomprehensible; they would be missing too many of the pop-cultural references and current catchphrases and memes. Not to mention the puns, which never translate well.
Should have used a smiley, I guess. I thought it was pretty obvious that I was kidding: “they’re only fundamentalist when they’re democratic, and they’re only tolerant when they’re undemocratic”.
India’s per capita GDP: $1,032
Pakistan’s per capita GDP: $1,067
India’s total GDP: $1,235 billion
Pakistan’s total GDP: $177 billion
So the two countries have pretty much identical per capita income, yet, since India has a much larger population India has an economy 7 times larger than Pakistan’s. And so India has the 11th largest economy in the world, while Pakistan has the 45th largest.
Oh, but Pakistan is inhabited by a proud warrior race, yet India is inhabited by vegetarian cowards. So yeah.
Oh come now, Marley, that’s just rude. He explains his statement in the next two lines, which you snipped out in your quote. I think that statement was perfectly comprehensible as a whole, if not how a standard english speaker would say it.
Hmm, I wonder why someone in from a different country might have different metaphors that make perfect sense to him. And I wonder if you would respond when even the moderator of the thread takes a hostile tone with you.
In other words, calm down, ask nicely, and see if the guy will try to be more clear. Don’t get so defensive so quickly.
As background, both tomndebb and I have told Abisafyan in the past that he needs to try harder to make himself understood. You’ll have to excuse me if I’m a little less polite when I have to repeat myself. EDIT: I’d be happy to see this thread continue; there’s a topic in here somewhere. But it’s hard to see that happening if the OP doesn’t help.
