---- by J. L. S.
---------- for the Grice Club
---- WATCHING THE OSCARS ceremony as I type this -- commercial break here --. I can't find the proper channel so I'm watching it as 'dubbed' or something, and I get so embarrased when I hear people with an accent (embarrassed on other's non-embarrased behalf) that I 'muted' the man when he spoke (the director). I hope he spoke sensibly. (Must rush, break out). Never saw the film, but whose eyes are those? "El secreto de sus ojos" -- "The secret of their eyes". No lingo travel! Who would ever title a film in the vernacular by that 'utterly ambiguous' and in the worst grammatical 'way', name?! But then... If someone reads the capsule or can find out and analyse it Griceanly, thanks. The fact that 'eyes' is plural confuses things already, but 'sus', in the vernacular, can mean, they-masc. plural, they-fem. plural, they-neut. plural, he-masc. sing, she-masc. sing., its-neut. sing. I hope it's not about dogs's eyes, in a bad 'way'. Etc.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
OK-- another break, sort of. I don't think it can apply to neuter, or neuter plural. Of course 'canis', in Latin, was masculine, and so is 'dog' in the vernacular (masculine), while 'bitch' is feminine. I would go as far as to suggest that if something or somebody has eyes, that something, or better, somebody cannot be neuter or neutral. A bee's eye, for example -- pretty big as it is, for example, involves already di-morphic sexualism. Anyway, I guess I'll soon find out whose eyes hold that (well-kept) secret. Incidentally, is 'whose' the right interrogative word? If it's neutral, i.e. a matter of 'what', rather than 'whose', I don't think there is a proper way to just ask about that, without 'implicating' or 'making it as to entail' that it's a 'who' rather than a 'what', no?
ReplyDeleteThere is the further complication, my mother has just found out -- if it's a cyclops. She hasn't seen the film, either -- but her friend has and she'll find out. A cyclops (unlike any other natural being) has one eye, so that "the secret of their eyes" would invove a reference, per necessitatem, to at least two of them, i.e. two cyclopes. It's easier if you think a man who _lacks_ (by 'virtue' of an accident, say) one eye (and has, therefore, only a remaining one).
ReplyDeleteI would think the film trades on 'eye-witness', i.e. the idea alla 'my lips are sealed'. We assume it's a girl (she) whose eyes (two of them), her eyes -- but clumsily translated onto English as "their" eyes --- have seen something, and SHE holds a secret about the 'visum' as it were. We'll, er, ... see.
It has been suggested to me (by A. M. G.) that 'eye' can also be used metaphorically -- the 'eyes' in the feathers of a peacocke say. In which case, 'their' eyes would still project a different implicature, especially vis a vis the 'neuter' reading: a feather, neuter, the 'eyes' of a feather --, and assuming a feather can have more than one 'eye', the secret of their eyes, could be expanded to 'the secret of the eyes (at least two of them) of a _neuter_ feather. Etc.