| Comment | If English is the source language, then schweben fits the sense of the context following your topic sentence, but does not accurately translate "to dangle".
To dangle doesn't mean to be floating in the air, as the cartoon character image indicates. On the contrary, it means to be hanging down, with the implication of being suspended over a void supported by a rope or something.
However, the cartoon image of the Coyote suspended in air having run off the edge of the cliff is familiar to us all and he is definitely *not* dangling, he's floating, or suspended in air, or momentarily hovering, before crashing to the ground.
So in the original the choice of "to dangle" actually doesn't match the remainder of the description. I suppose translators have to deal with this kind of difficulty all the time.
The part about the e-mail makes it clear that we're not talking about actual floating in air or hanging suspended, but only a metaphorical sense, namely in the desciption of Alice's feelings with respect to some e-mail issue.
So maybe in a metaphorical case, t's all right for the verb and the image to be at odds with each other. In that case, you might translate "dangle" more literally into German, preserving the dissonance between the verb choice and the following image, with the intention that the German reader also interpret it metaphorically.
I'm just glad I don't have to translate it. |
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