placing words in quotation marks

An interesting thing that I have noticed among Korean students is that they are much more fond of so-called emoticons (ㅠㅠ, ^^, ^^; , etc). I think this somewhat spills over into their formal essay writing. A case in point is quotation marks (" ").

When students translate from Korean to English, they tend to put terminology (such as acronyms or other terms) in quotation marks. For example, when asked to translate GDP란 국내에서 한 해 동안 발생한 재화와 용역의 순가치를 의미한다, they tend to put the word GDP in quotation marks like the following;

• "GDP" is the market value of all final goods and services made within the borders of a country in a year.

But unless the original Korean text puts GDP in quotation marks, students are NOT supposed to do so in their translation. This is because quotation marks have particular functions: citing, emphasis, and disagreement. Take a look at the following example.

• After the Second World War, the U.S. government sought to persuade women to leave their jobs in factories, thus making room in the labor force for returning veterans. State laws limiting the daily work hours of female workers for their well-being conveniently accomplished this. Employers had only to declare that overtime hours were a necessary condition of employment. This way, women could be legally fired or refused jobs, all in the name of "protecting" their health.

In this prompt, "protecting" in quotations marks could suggest that

1) it is the exact quotation of the original text of the state laws in question (citing); or
2) the laws were genuinely protective of female workers (emphasis); or
3) the state laws were actually detrimental to female workers, despite the ostensibly protective intent behind them (disagreement)

But within the context of the paragraph, the author placed "protecting" in quotation marks most likely because he doubts that the laws in question actually protected women.

In short, when you "translate" between Korean and English, do not put words in quotation marks unless the original text does so.

tantamount

I see a lot of my students using "something is tantamount to something" to mean "~에 상당한다."

Keep in mind that "to be tantamount" is about being equivalent in significance or effect, not about being equal in value or amount.

Please take a look at the following examples:

• "$3 is tantamount to half of his weekly allowance" (x): you are comparing the amount, not the significance of $3 to this person. So "tantamount" here sounds awkward. You should say "$3 is half of his weekly allowance" instead.

• "Spending $300 on this video game is tantamount to wasting all of my monthly budget on something useless" (O)