- How could integrity become 诚信? “操守”is much closer, I think, although still not right. 诚信means trust worthy.
I am not good at translation at all. When I was a teenager I could still translate some simple sentenses. After I became capable of thinking in English, I could hardly be capable of translating even a single sentence. But, just as you said early, it is much easier to find faults in other's translations. Like this one, 诚信. I really don't think it has anything to do with integrity.
Integrity, in my humble opinion, refers to some internal principle or consistency one holds in one's own mind or heart. Person A says something or does something may not cause people to think he/she has no integrity but Person B might. It depends. A man without integrity is not trust worthy, but a trust worthy man is not necessarily a man with integrity. Almost like the Chinese phrase "Shi Tiao Han Zi" or "Xing Qing Zhong Ren". To say or do things against one's own heart means losing integrity. That's what I think it is. I could be wrong.
As to your point about picture and machine in E.B. White's sentence, my understanding is that it reads natural in English but not so in Chinese. That's a good example of language difference. Details are often appreciated in English whereas not in Chinese. That's why Chinese is deemed as poetic language. It encourages skipping and jumping around whereas English requires step by step process. Good Chinese style often looks imperfect in English, and perfect English style often looks stupid in Chinese.
尚能饭 wrote:
另外，integrity我是翻译成“操守”的，但国内学术界的领导同志们觉得该字太“古”，况且国内已有“约定俗成”的“诚信”，我只好顺着他们。但书中多处我还是翻译成操守的。：）
zxd