Getting It Wrong

[tgeezer]

อนึ่งในคำประพันธ์อาจไม่อ่านตามหลักที่ราชบัณฑิตยสถานได้กำหนดไว้ เนื่องจากต้องการออกเสียงให้ตรงตามลักษณะบังคับของคำประพันธ์นั้น ๆ

This is from the preface to the booklet "อ่านอย่างไร และ เขียนอย่างไร" by the Royal Institute. I had great difficulty getting the meaning of this and in fact never cracked it and had to have it explained, a thing to be avoided at all cost in my case because I can not help pointing out ambiguaities in Thai which causes some friction, however I digress.

I finally thought that it meant that:

Although you may be able to read pros wrongly you have to speak it correctly following the rules of the Institute.

It was not a satisfactory translation. I was conditioned to have the Institute argue in suport of correct pronuciation and missed the fact that some other factors can affect the pronunciation. ออกเสียงให้ ฯลฯ คำประพันธ์นั้น

After learning what the real translation was it is so obvious that you will wonder what the problem was, but it took me days to not get it!

I hope that someone finds that interesting, but just in case not here is an example of the nit-picking approach that Thai can not tolerate to which I alluded earlier.

In the same preface: ราชบัณฑิตยสถานได้มอบหมายให้นักวรรณศิลป์ now in the พ.ศ. ๒๕๒๕ version of the dictionary มอบหมาย=สั่งเสย whereas the พ.ศ. ๒๕๔๒ version shows กำชับสั่งเสีย and when a chap innocently points out that this narrows the meaning and in any case was unnecessary, you would have thought that I had just insulted the Thai nation. I don't know how many people here think that it is the perfect case for an adverb, obviously I should not have thought that the Institute would have needed to insist. Yes I know the context precludes that definition and there are others: กะให้ กำหนดให้, but it fitted the previous definition perfectly and now it doesn't! So now มอบหมาย is either an 'insistence' or 'an estimate' or as in this case 'an order'

So to conclude, I have come to the decision, or read it somewhere that the meaning is determined by the context.

[mangkorn]

Huh?

[5tash]

อนึ่งในคำประพันธ์อาจไม่อ่านตามหลักที่ราชบัณฑิตยสถานได้กำหนดไว้ เนื่องจากต้องการออกเสียงให้ตรงตามลักษณะบังคับของคำประพันธ์นั้น ๆ

Here's my (rough) attempt at a translation:

"Furthermore, in poetry we may not read according to the rules set by the royal institute, due to the fact that we require to pronouce in accordance to the style of the poetry."

[tgeezer]

อนึ่งในคำประพันธ์อาจไม่อ่านตามหลักที่ราชบัณฑิตยสถานได้กำหนดไว้ เนื่องจากต้องการออกเสียงให้ตรงตามลักษณะบังคับของคำประพันธ์นั้น ๆ

Here's my (rough) attempt at a translation:

"Furthermore, in poetry we may not read according to the rules set by the royal institute, due to the fact that we require to pronouce in accordance to the style of the poetry."

'Pre sactly' You have made the association of คำประพันธ์ with poetry from the context, (needing to sound the words differently from the rules of the Institute). That is what I meant by context, and I was unable to make that link, I had never before came across ประพันธ์ in that context. Although all poetry is composition not all composition is poetry.