[Corpora-List] cheerfully unaware

From: Monika Bednarek (Monika.Bednarek@phil.uni-augsburg.de)
Date: Wed Mar 22 2006 - 00:24:11 MET

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    Dear all,
     
    It appears that many people have been thinking about and investigating the use of “cheerfully” while I was sound asleep here in Australia… Thank you very much to David, Richard, Tadeusz, Donna, John, Ramesh, Martin, and Kate for your helpful comments! (I hope I haven’t forgotten anyone)
     
    Even though there may be some meaning differences in my examples, in most cases the situation seems to look like this:
     
    Meaning:
     

    If you describe someone's attitude as cheerful, you mean they are
not
    worried about something, and you think that they should be. (Collins-Cobuild Third Edition)
     

    'conscious'/deliberate treatment of 'adjective' as being of no
importance (on the part of the entity being explicitly/implicitly
described as negative)

being cheerful/happy despite something negative
     
    Paraphrases:
     
    cheerful and …

    ungrudgingly

willingly

optimistically

blissfully (as in blissfully ignorant)

blithely

heedlessly

carelessly

breezily

unrepentantly

unashamedly
     
     Suggested translations:

    insouciance (French)
    schamlos (German)
    reuelos (German)
    sorglos (German)
    unbekümmert (German)
    gut gelaunt (German)
     
    I’d say that you could not translate these adv+adj combinations as adv + adj combinations in German in most cases. Rather you’d probably translate them as adj + conj + adj or adj + prep + NP:
    e.g. cheerfully sick
    „krank, aber unbekümmert/gut gelaunt“ (‘sick but cheerful’)
    „unbekümmert/gut gelaunt trotz seiner Krankheit“ (‚cheerful despite his sickness’)
     
    though I’m still not sure about which German adj would fit best – probably depends on the context. I suspect that different adjectives can be used. It is certainly NOT possible to say “fröhlich krank” (‘cheerfully sick’) in German.
     
    The use of “cheerfully stained” does seem a bit different, and this could be translated as adj + N (“eine Schürze mit fröhlichen Flecken” – ‘an apron with cheerful/happy stains’)
     
    The use of “cheerfully unaware” is again different – perhaps to be translated as “völlig im Unklaren darüber”, though this completely lacks the ‘happy’ meaning of “cheerfully”.
     
    To be honest, I find that “cheerfully” is very difficult to translate but I guess I must try to cheerfully accept this...
     
    Again, thank you very much to everyone,
     
    Monika
     
     

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