Was it a good thing or was it a bad thing? It was a expressen in a text from the 1950s.

Expression. Not Expressen.

Hi Cauda.

Most of our American friends seem to be asleep ;-) but I'm awake in France.

I think it might be a reference to the fact that rubber "gives" or absorbs an impact and then repels it without breaking. Does that fit?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/08/2021 06:44AM by Soft Machine.

Hello Soft Machine

Sounds like the right reference. It is hard sometimes to understand texts in another languages.

Thank you!

This is true :-D. I have spent most of my adult life working as a technical translator (French to English) - in fact, it's what I should be doing instead of writing to you ;-). I am very well placed to know the full truth of the difficulties of understanding texts in other languages. Have a nice afternoon :-)

Yes. Affirmative. Your answer complemented my lack of knowledge. Now I am not ignorant anymore on this specific issue that I needed help to resolve.

I'm rubber, you're glue. Bounces off me and sticks to you.

You just had to go there EB :)

You knew somebody had to say it!
It was my first thought too, so I'm glad EB took the hook first.

The expression is unfamiliar to me, so context - in particular, the direct object (i.e. taking what like rubber?) - would help.

Additionally, the context might show that the sentence needs to be parsed differently to be understood.

Tyson

"Becoming a parent was stymied when my seed bounced off the rubber."

"Rubbers" were also rubber overshoes, put over regular street shoes, to protect from rain. A lame joke from the period was to remind a guy when going out on a date to "remember to take your rubbers--just in case!" Meaning: It might rain (footwear rubbers) or you might get lucky and have sex (condoms).

There's a British usage that may make sense. "Take the rubber" can mean winning a sequential game. So something like this:

"He won three out of five games to take the rubber."

Does that work in the context?

Wait!!!

Do the British play bridge?

No, they play chunnel. The engineering was tough but it holds up better during a storm.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/08/2021 08:13PM by Lot's Wife.

I found it in a text about thought reform. People were forced to confess things they had not done. So when they confessed the interrogater just took it like rubber to keep the reform process going. It seemed to me that it had some cultural meaning or I was overthinking it. I have a bad habit - taking things literally in general - I have learned to not feel satisfied with my own intepretation so I always turn to others or try to learn more. I can be a bit tedious and ignorant by my own will. Do not know if it is a question about low self-esteem it is just what I do. I irritate people and can not always help it. But it is workable.

Wise people always seek advice from others about these things. Words and their usage are so often idiomatic, things that don't make literal sense.

So no harm, no fowl*.














*Intentional



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/09/2021 02:50AM by Lot's Wife.

'The same action was seen by me and them from a completely different morality—seen through a different window. They are looking through from the outside in, me from the inside out. . . . They said the government is infallible, so what it discovered cannot be untrue. That puts me in a bad position. I said, "I admit the government is infallible." They took my words like rubber. . . . Later I asked the government for a lenient sentence, I could not say that they were unjust, as I was standing on their point of view.'


The book, Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism, is written in English; however, that's a quote from one of the Western missionaries (13 total: 12 Catholic, 1 Protestant) who were interviewed for the book. The Westerners interviewed for the book (25 in all) consisted of "seven Germans, seven Frenchmen, five Americans, one Dutchman, one Belgian, one Canadian, one Italian, one Irishman and one (White) Russian;".

The author doesn't identify the nationality of the speaker, but the majority of the Westerners do not appear to have been native English speakers, so really this is a question of whether "They took my words like rubber" is idiomatic in any of the other languages. In the languages I'm familiar with, none of these possible calques is an expression I recognize:

- prendre les paroles comme du caoutchouc
- die Worte wie Gummi nehmen
- de woorden als Rubber nemen
- prendere le parole come goma

As for "glac focail cosúil le rubar" (Irish) and "узяць словы як гума" (Belarusian), I have no idea.


Judging from the context, you're probably dealing with an expression that means "They stuck to my words like glue."

But without knowing the actual language of the missionary in question, it's impossible to know for sure what they meant.

Tyson

Wow! You guys here on the board really take your time to give people aid and help in life. Thank you!

The missionary was from Italy but born in africa I think. Do not really remember.