“หรือไม่”

[DavidHouston]

Friends,

Question about a Lexitron sentence:

กวีไทยมักเปรียบผู้หญิงกับดอกไม้หรือไม่ก็งูพิษ

At first blush, I would render this as:

"Thai poets often compare women to flowers, or if not, thento poisonous snakes."

My question is about what seems to be the conjunction "หรือไม่". Lexitron hasthis word as "or not", equivalent to "หรือเปล่า". This definition does not seem applicable inthis context, however.

Another view would be to have the sentence say:

"Thai poets often compare women with flowers, but not topoisonous snakes." But, this somehowdoes not seem right.

What do you think?

[mikenyork]

I think your first translation is correct. If I were to expand the sentence to include understood (but left out) words, I would say

กวีไทยมักเปรียบผู้หญิงกับดอกไม้หรือไม่(อย่างนั้น)ก็(กับ)งูพิษ

What do you think?

[tgeezer]

I think it means 'Thai poets compare women to flowers and if not(flowers) then venomous snakes'.

Edited August 5, 2010 by tgeezer

[DocJD]

I think your first translation is correct. If I were to expand the sentence to include understood (but left out) words, I would say

กวีไทยมักเปรียบผู้หญิงกับดอกไม้หรือไม่(อย่างนั้น)ก็(กับ)งูพิษ

What do you think?

อึม... ความหมายเดียวกันแหละ

"Thai poems often compare women to either flowers or venomous snakes."

[tgeezer]

I think your first translation is correct. If I were to expand the sentence to include understood (but left out) words, I would say

กวีไทยมักเปรียบผู้หญิงกับดอกไม้หรือไม่(อย่างนั้น)ก็(กับ)งูพิษ

What do you think?

อึม... ความหมายเดียวกันแหละ

"Thai poems often compare women to either flowers or venomous snakes."

It isn't actually 'often' มัก means 'likely to' or 'a propensity for' something, I didn't bother with it but it is probably relevent.

[GarryP]

So from all the input it would be "Thai poetry mostly compares women to flowers or if not, then venomous snakes". But how about, "Thai poetry mostly compares women to either flowers or venomous snakes".

[Puschl]

I'd guess the full conjection in question is หรือไม่ก็ , and I'd further guess it would translate into "but also" หรือไม่ก็ "or also". So one rendering of above sentence in english might be:

Thai poets are prone to compare women to flowers, but also to vipers.

Here's another example using หรือไม่ก็, (an excerpt from the longdo dict definition of Autobahn):

ทางแยกออก หรือแยกเข้า จะทำเป็นทางยกระดับ หรือไม่ก็ลอดใต้ดินไป

Exit and entrance ramps can be routed overhead, but also underground. (loose translation attempt)

My apologies for not enlarging the thai texts, but the controls don't work with my browser.

[tgeezer]

I'd guess the full conjection in question is หรือไม่ก็ , and I'd further guess it would translate into "but also" หรือไม่ก็ "or also". So one rendering of above sentence in english might be:

Thai poets are prone to compare women to flowers, but also to vipers.

Here's another example using หรือไม่ก็, (an excerpt from the longdo dict definition of Autobahn):

ทางแยกออก หรือแยกเข้า จะทำเป็นทางยกระดับ หรือไม่ก็ลอดใต้ดินไป

Exit and entrance ramps can be routed overhead, but also underground. (loose translation attempt)

My apologies for not enlarging the thai texts, but the controls don't work with my browser.

Isn't this just a conjunction, why not just use 'or'?

Thai poets are prone to compare women to flowers or venomous snakes.

Slip roads can be either raised up or underground.

Are there that many spaces(commas) in the Autobahn piece?

This is just fiddling about with English; is it poet or poems might be more productive. I say poet because my dictionary does and perhaps it can be proved by the use of มัก which maybe can't be applied to an inanimate object.