A Debate among our Founding Fathers

Only Americans have the humility to call the United States an Imperfect Union. Only Americans have the audacity to promise themselves a More Perfect Union. We don't even care if "More Perfect" makes grammatical sense. But then we are Americans. Grammatical sense be damned.

Grammatical sense be damned? Not so fast.

Actually, our founding fathers had quite a debate over grammar. Some of them argued for "inalienable rights" in the early versions of our Declaration of Independence. They conceded to the majority who voted for "unalienable rights" in its final version. Interestingly, our modern dictionaries prefer "inalienable" as a proper adjective. 

Inalienable or unalienable rights, however, have long been declared enough but not exercised enough. Accordingly, our American history shows a gnawing gap between rights declared and rights exercised. More importantly, this gnawing gap is narrowing. If that's not progress, I don't know what is.

Happy Father's Day!


Author: renqiulan


Google Image

 

美国的国父们伟大就在于他们从旧阵营出来，看清弊病，全新建设。我曾在弗州两年，去了所有前期总统的故居接受再教育！有博文

要看看花姐博文！李白《蜀道难》：“开国何茫然”。蚕丛是蜀国首位称王的人。美国开国不茫然，因为沒有人称王，沒有人敢于称王。

我希望你看，并给我指正。我一连写了4篇，最早2000年是为国内而写。都被封了。后转过来的。链接在里面

https://blog.wenxuecity.com/myblog/65898/201405/6601.html

这是第一篇，接着是后3篇

I think I'll learn a lot from your posts.

谢谢秋兰。It's very meaningful to talk about founding fathers in

Father's Day.

有个语言问题请教一下秋兰：unalienable rights 被翻译成中文为“不可剥夺的权利”。如果再把中文翻译回英文，一般为undeprivable rights.   我想问问您，unalienable 与 undeprivable 在感觉上有什么不同。这个超出我的语言能力了。

这是个值得深思的问题。秋兰节日快乐！

不会呀，我只是粗略知道一二，也许还有谬误呢。所以小R一定要不吝赐教

谢谢，秋兰的豪气文章。

我就住在维吉尼亚多年，华盛顿的家去过n次，有趣的是在各处扮农夫，劳工的小伙子，都是大学历史系的学生。老公最爱跟他们谈史

我最爱去的是Thomas Jefferson的家，他的烹饪书，还在研究“花生汤”的作法。。。。。。。。。。。。

Thomas Jefferson是个多才才子，他的家趣味多多，连离他家不远处的女奴房，他在那儿的小妾生活，也栩栩如生。

整个 Monticello 是他自己设计的。

最喜欢那时的玻离窗，好像刻有雨痕，看外面特别漂亮。Monticello 里面每处都是设计学问。

维州大学也是Thomas Jefferson设计的。

washington $1, Jefferson $2, Hamilton $10, Ben F $100, 何时Jeff 与B

Ben Franklin 钞票同值？

I am jealous when you say 'our Founding Father'

Throughout history we have had only rulers, one after another. This assertion may only fall bit short when it comes to Sun Yat San who founded the Republic. Be that as it may, I am still not lured to call him our Founding Father for his Republic has been thrown to a small island long before my birth and is hanging on fighting for its very existence now.

我们住在弗吉尼亚时，我一是看总统故居，二是参观南北战争所有的遗迹，写了8篇呢，全面接受美国爱国主义教育哈哈

花花，搬家多次啊！

赞花的爱国之心。

1913年的两块钱值100块，哈哈，不用找，周末愉快。

花姐太客气了。

谢谢唐宋君！个人认为沒有相宜的中译。希望大家指教一下。

谢谢六六姐！美国真是个多元化的社会。不少美国人并不承认华盛顿等是美国国父们的。

谢谢猫姐！拙文短叙了这一段独立史插曲。

历史短的美国，其国民偏爱谈历史，大概因为意识到历史的重要性吧。

有沒有看看其庄外的黑奴小墓地呢？

对。包括杰佛遜在內，美国国父们都是启蒙运动的实行家，对科学文史工艺都认真学习和发扬的。

美国就住过弗州。。。。

个人作野史看待。The history of mulattos gives credit to the theory.

Virginia 历史文物之丰盛，足以媲美新英格兰。

是我没有说清楚：“人人生而平等，享有造物主赋予给他们的不可剥夺的权利，包括。。。”是中文的对美国《独立宣言》的

“标准”翻译，可能远在民国时期就被这么翻译了。我不懂英文时就读到过这个中文版。后来发现英文里面用的是unalienable，于是心里一直想知道这个词与undeprivable 的区别。也许中文理解和翻译为"不可剥夺”就是不准确的？

Check out these 2 "National Treasure" movies. Interesting.

那时是美金，1970代就成了美元。

Unlike Napoleon,Washington picked citizenship over kingship.

The sons of heaven might be prisoners of their egos.

有啊！

是的，方圆之内都是美国历史大事的发生地

+100

I always believe that General Washington is the greatest

I always believe that General Washington is the greatest person in human history.

True.

At least, Washington was one of the greatest US presidents.

A gnawing gap: "rights declared and rights exercised."

The above quote is a fair comment on the US history.

That's more like it. Thank you!

You must've taken a lot of notes.Keep them as your treasure.

花姐写得真好！

广告一下：去读花姐关于华盛顿将军故居的文章，可以看到花姐的美人儿照片哈

Thank you, nearby, for your comment!

I'm in a "gold rush"!

谢谢秋兰。

Fair and balanced. Thank you, Wei Wei!

Thank you for quoting me!

History doesn't lie, but people may lie about history.

Thank you, AP! Do you have faith in $US? I do.

We are missing you, nearby!