Is this a mistake or am I not getting something?

[ithinkitsnice]

I've been checking Gaelic signage etc. whenever I see it in Glasgow, partly for practice and partly to satisfy my inner pedant. That above is from a listing for an event at an arts venue. Unless there's something I'm not getting, either the Gaelic or the English is wrong. Interested to find out which it is.

1) If the gaelic is correct, to me it says "Trouble[noun] in the water", which would mean the English should be "Trouble in the Water".

2 If the English is correct, then I think the Gaelic should read "Buair[imperative] an t-Uisge".

3) If I'm wrong, the tr*nsl*t**n is correct. In that case can someone explain what's going on?

[GunChleoc]

I found the expression

cuir buaireas ann am Màiri
morally confuse Màiri!

In the Faclair beag - so, it's a matter of Gaelic expressing things a bit differently from English - the tr*nsl*t*r wanted to make it sound good and natural in both languages. Your grammar analysis is correct though

[ithinkitsnice]

Interesting that's the meaning of the Gaelic (something like "the water is troubled"), but the English is still an imperative/command ("trouble the water!"), whereas the Gaelic is just making a statement.

Maybe it was intentional, still feels like a mismatch to me though.

[faoileag]

I think it's clearly intentional, and roughly calling up the same associations in both languages, for the groups the play/event is dealing with.

http://heyevent.de/event/2d7hicgnpe2hia ... -the-water

Given the topic, there's an element of 'stirring things up' in both titles, the opposite of pouring oil on troubled waters, and also the Biblical associations - appropriate to the topic, and well-known both to traditional Bible-reading Highlanders and the Methodist/gospel-singing black Americans, of the troubling of the waters of the pool of Bethesda before it could cure the lame etc.

The imperative in the English makes a more powerful title than just 'troubed waters' or similar, and English is famously very verb-oriented, and I would say Gaelic is just as happy with nouns (+ dèanamh, cur, gabhal etc). That's my unscientific take on it!

[Níall Beag]

To expand on faoileag's comment, if you want to make a reference, you need to choose an equal reference in both languages. The tense in the two examples will be derived from the original context in which they were found. The most well-known referent for the English version would have to be the song "wade in the water", the chorus of which ends "God's gonna trouble the water". Deleting the words "God's gonna" changes the tense, but because the word forms remain the same, it has strong connections to the song. I don't know how close the hymn relates to whichever Bible passage it itself references, but the song is definitely the strongest potential referent (particularly given the number of different translations of the Bible). I'm assuming the Gaelic Bible passage must be along the lines of "Chuir Dhia buaireas anns an uisge", and a similar deletion to the English leaves us with a noun phrase "buaireas anns an uisge".

Certainly seems like one of the better title translations out there.

[ithinkitsnice]

Ah right, that makes sense. They were that close literally I just assumed error, didn't consider anything like that.