Pelé’s 70th birthday

Source: www.maganews.com.br

Edson Arantes do Nascimento - Pelé. O Rei. Whatever the name, the memory is the same: of a world-beating superstar, a record-breaking football icon

       With every touch of the ball, every pass, every dribble, Pelé was capable

 of coming up with something new - something the fans had never seen before.

With a killer instinct in front of goal, an eye for the perfect pass and supreme athleticism, the Brazilian was just about the perfect footballer. And if the Seleção came to incarnate the 'beautiful game' in the eyes of so many observers around the world, this can largely be credited to the breathtaking skills of their most celebrated No10. He joined Santos at the age of 15 and had not yet turned 16 when he scored on his first team debut in a friendly against Corinthians of Santo Andre in September 1956.

         The world first set eyes on Pelé in Sweden in 1958. He was just 17 when he played in his first FIFA World Cup, a slight teenager who emerged from nowhere to light up the tournament with his dazzling skills. It is often said that it was player power that earned Pelé a place in the starting line-up for Brazil's third match of the finals against the Soviet Union.           He had been sidelined by a knee injury but on his return from the treatment room, his colleagues closed ranks and insisted upon his selection in attack alongside Vava.  The prodigy repaid his team-mates with the only goal againstWales in the quarter-finals - and in doing so established a record as the youngest scorer in FIFA World Cup history, aged 17 years and 239 days. Having found his range, he then struck a second-half hat-trick inside 23 minutes in Brazil's 5-2 defeat of France in the semi-finals.

     By now, Pelé was unstoppable, allying perfect technique with lightning speed, intelligence and opportunism, and he rounded off his first FIFA World Cup with two splendid goals against Swedenin the Final.  At the final whistle, Seleção keeper Gilmar had to console the boy wonder, who was carried off the field in tears on his team-mates' shoulders. "I felt like I was living in a dream," remembered Pelé, and in many ways he was, a player set apart by his extraordinary talent. In the years that followed he only got better.     He scored 127 goals in 1959, 110 in 1961, and inspiredSantos to consecutive Copa Libertadores triumphs in 1962 and 1963; conquests which preceded back-to-back  

        Pelé arrived at the 1962 FIFA World Cup in Chile ready to set the world alight again. It was the perfect stage to showcase his talents but, sadly, he aggravated a groin injury in Brazil's second outing against Czechoslovakia and did not reappear. Instead, he watched from the sidelines as his team-mates regained their world title. Pele was, by now, a marked man and the same unhappy fate awaited him in 1966 in England, where he again exited the finals on a stretcher, the victim of some fierce tackling in games against Bulgaria and Portugal. This time, though, Brazil joined him in departing the scene early, falling at the first hurdle.

        Pelé would have to wait until Mexico 1970 before reminding the world of his exceptional talents. In the first FIFA World Cup to be broadcast around the world in colour, 'The King' shone in all his glory, ably assisted by team-mates Jairzinho, Tostao, Rivelino, Gerson and Carlos Alberto. Highlights included his attempted lob from the halfway line against Czechoslovakia, a stunning header that brought an even more stunning save from England goalkeeper Gordon Banks, and the unforgettably cheeky moment when he stepped over the ball, letting it run past Uruguay keeper Ladislao Mazurkiewicz, before shooting narrowly wide.

     Fittingly, it was Pelé who scored Brazil's 100th FIFA World Cup goal in the 4-1 Final win overItaly - a header after a typically athletic leap. "It was a special feeling to score with my head. My father once scored five headers in one match - that's one record I've never been able to beat." It was his 12th goal in 14 FIFA World Cup appearances and he remains one of only two footballers to have netted in four separate tournaments.

       Brazil earned the right to keep the Jules Rimet trophy after winning it for a third time with arguably the greatest team ever. Pelé had become a living legend. The day after the final Britain's Sunday Times newspaper summed it up: "How do you spell Pelé? G-O-D."

Eternal greatness

    Throughout his career, Pelé was a record breaker. His 1,000th goal, a penalty, came in 1969 in front of a delirious crowd at the Maracana. He scored five goals in a game on no fewer than six occasions, managed 30 four-goal hauls and netted 92 hat-tricks. In one match against Botafogo in 1964, he hit the back of the net eight times. In total, the great man struck 1,281 goals in 1,363 games.

   Pele quit what he called o jogo bonito (the beautiful game) in 1974, before returning the following year to play for the New York Cosmos in order "to bring the world's game to the American public". He would hang up his boots for the last time in 1977.

     J.B. Pinheiro, the Brazilian ambassador to the United Nations, was quoted as saying: "Pele played football for 22 years, and in that time he did more to promote world friendship and fraternity than any other ambassador anywhere". And who could contradict him? In warring Nigeria a ceasefire was declared when Pelé played in Lagos in 1969. The President of Brazil declared him a "national treasure" to thwart any potential transfer to a European club. And in the port city of Santos, 19 November is forever 'Pele Day', to celebrate the anniversary of his 1,000th goal.

          Since his playing career ended, Pele has used his ambassador's status to promote his country, the UN and UNICEF. "Every kid in the world who plays football wants to be Pelé," he said, "which means I have the responsibility of showing them how to be a footballer but also how to be a man."But that is what Gods are for, isn't it?

Fonte – Fifa

Foto – Marcello Casal Jr / Agência Brasil

Confira a seguir uma matéria sobre o milésimo gol de Pelé, publicada na edição de número 51 da revista Maganews.

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Soccer’s golden memories

The day Pelé scored his one-thousandth goal

40 years ago, on November 19th 1969, soccer history was made

November 19th has gone down in Brazil’s soccer history. It was on this date, Flag [1] Day, in 1969 that Pelé scored [2] his one-thousandth goal. It was the first time a professional soccer player had achieved such a feat [3].The goal came in the match between Vasco and Santos on a Wednesday night at the Maracanã. The game was tied at 1-1 when Pelé won a penalty with just a few minutes of the game remaining.  In goal for Vasco was Andrada, facing [4] the King of Soccer.  Pelé was nervous, but scored. Even the Vasco fans went wild [5] as they saw his one-thousandth goal.  In the years that followed, Pelé scored many more goals, at the end of his career totaling an incredible 1,281 goals. His closest [6] rival as the undisputed [7] greatest player the game has ever seen, Maradona, scored “only” 353 goals.

Soccer in 1969

At that time Santos and Botafogo were the two biggest teams in Brazil. Top players such as Pelé, Garrincha, Rivelino and Tostão played at major Brazilian clubs. Today, our best players (such as Kaká, Robinho and Júlio César) play in Europe. In the 1960s there was no trouble in the stadiums. When Pelé scored his one-thousandth goal, Romário was just three years old, and he went on to become the second Brazilian to score one thousand goals.

However, Romário achieved this only when he was 41 years old. Pelé was faster: he scored his one-thousandth goal when he was just 29 years old.

Matéria publicada na edição de outubro / novembro da Revista Maganews (ed. número 51)

Foto - Fábio Rodrigues Pozzebom/Agência Brasil

  

Vocabulary

1 to score – marcar

2 Flag Day – Dia da Bandeira

3 feat – façanha / feito

4 to face – enfrentar

5 to go wild – exp. idiom. = vibrar

6 closest rival – maior rival

7 undisputed – indiscutível

Edith Wharton, 1862-1937: She Wrote About the Young and Innocent in a Dishonest World

Photo: edithwharton.org

During her lifetime Edith Wharton published about fifty books on a number of subjects.

Credits for VOA SPECIAL ENGLISH

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PHOEBE ZIMMERMANN: I'm Phoebe Zimmermann.

DOUG JOHNSON: And I'm Doug Johnson with the VOA Special English program PEOPLE IN AMERICA.  Every week we tell about a person who was important in the history of the United States.  Today, we tell about writer Edith Wharton.

(MUSIC)

PHOEBE ZIMMERMANN: A critic once described American writer Edith Wharton as a "self-made man." She liked the comment and repeated it.  Others said she was a product of New York City.  But the New York she wrote about was different from the New York of those who came after her.

Edith Wharton was born in New York City in eighteen sixty-two.  New York then was several different cities.  One New York was made up of people who worked for a living.  The other was much smaller.  It was made up of families who were so rich they did not need to work.

Edith was born into the wealthy New York.  But there was a "right" wealthy New York and a "wrong" wealthy New York.  Among the rich there were those who had been given money by parents or grandparents.  Then there were those who earned their own money, the newly rich.

Edith's family was from the "right" New Yorkers, people who had "old" money.  It was a group that did not want its way of living changed.  It also was a group without many ideas of its own.  It was from this group that Edith Wharton created herself.

edithwharton.org

Edith Wharton received America's top writing award, the Pulitzer Prize, for “The Age of Innocence.”

DOUG JOHNSON: Like many girls her age, Edith wrote stories.  In one of her childhood stories, a woman apologizes for not having a completely clean house when another woman makes an unexpected visit.  Edith's mother read the story.  Her only comment was that one's house was always clean and ready for visitors.  Edith's house always was.

Edith spent much of her childhood in Europe.  She was educated by special teachers and not at schools.

If Edith's family feared anything, it was sharp social, cultural, and economic change.  Yet these were the things Edith would see in her lifetime.

The end of the Civil War in eighteen sixty-five marked the beginning of great changes in the United States.  The country that had been mostly agricultural was becoming industrial.  Businessmen and workers increasingly were gaining political and economic power.

Edith Wharton saw these changes sooner than most people.  And she rejected them.  To her, the old America was a victim of the new.  She did not like the new values of money replacing the old values of family.

(MUSIC)

PHOEBE ZIMMERMANN: In eighteen eighty-five, she married Edward Wharton.  He was her social equal.  They lived together for twenty-eight years.  But it was a marriage without much love.

In nineteen thirteen, she sought to end the marriage.  That she waited so long to do so, one critic said, was a sign of her ties to the idea of family and to tradition.

Some critics think that Edith Wharton began to write because she found the people of her social group so uninteresting.  Others say she began when her husband became sick and she needed something to do.

The fact is that Wharton thought of herself as a writer from the time she was a child.  Writing gave her a sense of freedom from the restrictions of her social class.

DOUG JOHNSON: Writing was just one of a series of things she did.  And she did all of them well.  She was interested in designing and caring for gardens.  She designed her own house.  She had an international social life and left a large collection of letters.

edithwharton.org

She was the first woman to be honored with a gold medal from the American National Institute of Arts and Letters.

In her lifetime she published about fifty books on a number of subjects.

Many critics believe Edith Wharton should have written the story of her social group.  To do this, however, she would have had to remove herself from the group to see it clearly.  She could not do this, even intellectually.  Her education and her traditions made it impossible.

The subject of Edith Wharton's writing became the story of the young and innocent in a dishonest world.  She did not make a connection between her work and her own life.  What she had was the ability to speak plainly about emotions that, until then, had been hidden.

She also was among the first American women writers to gain a sense of the world as an evil place. "Life is the saddest thing," she wrote, "next to death."

(MUSIC)

PHOEBE ZIMMERMANN: To show that she could do more than just write stories, she wrote a book with Ogden Codman, “The Decoration of Houses.”  It was very successful.  About the same time, her poems and stories also began to be published in Scribner's  Magazine.

In eighteen ninety-nine her collection of stories, “The Greater Inclination,” appeared.  It was an immediate success.  When she was in London, she visited a bookstore. The store owner, who did not know who she was, handed her the book.  He said to her, "This is what everyone in London is talking about now.

DOUG JOHNSON: Three years later her first novel, “The Valley of Decision,” was published.  Three years after that she published her first great popular success, the novel “The House of Mirth.”

“The House of Mirth” is the story of a young woman who lacks the money to continue her high social position.  As in so many stories by Edith Wharton, the main character does not control what happens to her.  She is a victim who is defeated by forces she does not fight to overcome.  This idea is central to much of Edith Wharton's best writing.  The old families of New York are in conflict with the newly rich families.  The major people in the stories are trapped in a hopeless struggle with social forces more powerful than they.  And they struggle against people whose beliefs and actions are not as moral as theirs.

PHOEBE ZIMMERMANN: This is the situation in one of Wharton's most popular books, “Ethan Frome,” published in nineteen eleven.  Unlike her other novels, it is set on a farm in the northeastern state of Massachusetts.  It is the story of a man and woman whose lives are controlled, and finally destroyed, by custom. They are the victims of society.  They die honorably instead of fighting back.  If they were to reject custom, however, they would not be the people they are.  And they would not mean as much to each other.

edithwharton.org

Edith Wharton's Library at The Mount. She designed the house in 1902.

In nineteen thirteen, Wharton's marriage ended.  It was the same year that she published another novel that was highly praised, “The Custom of the Country.”  In it she discusses the effects of new wealth in the late nineteenth century on a beautiful young woman.

DOUG JOHNSON: Most critics agree that most of Edith Wharton's writing after nineteen thirteen is not as good as before that time.  It was as if she needed the difficulties of her marriage to write well.  Much of her best work seems to have been written under the pressure of great personal crisis.  After her marriage ended, her work was not as sharp as her earlier writing.

In nineteen twenty, however, she produced “The Age of Innocence.”  Many critics think this is her best novel.  In it she deals with the lack of honesty that lies behind the apparent innocence of the New York social world.  A man and woman see their lives ruined because they have duties they cannot escape.

Edith Wharton received America's top writing award, the Pulitzer Prize, for “The Age of Innocence.”   In nineteen ninety-three, the movie of “The Age of Innocence” created new interest in her work.

(MUSIC)

PHOEBE ZIMMERMANN: In the later years of her life, Wharton gave more and more of her time to an important group of diplomats, artists, and thinkers.  Among her friends was the American writer Henry James.  She liked James as a man and as a writer.  She often used her car and driver to take him on short trips.

At one time, Henry James was hoping that his publisher would print a collection of his many novels and stories.  Wharton knew of this wish.  And she knew that the publisher thought he would lose money if he published such a collection.  She wrote to the publisher.  She agreed to secretly pay the publisher to print the collection of her friend's writings.

DOUG JOHNSON: In nineteen thirty, the American National Institute of Arts and Letters gave Wharton a gold medal.  She was the first woman to be so honored.  Four years later she wrote the story of her life, “A Backward Glance.”  Edith Wharton died in nineteen thirty-seven at one of the two homes she owned in France.

(MUSIC)

PHOEBE ZIMMERMANN: This Special English program was written by Richard Thorman.  It was produced by Lawan Davis.  I'm Phoebe Zimmermann.

DOUG JOHNSON: And I'm Doug Johnson.  Join us again next week for another PEOPLE IN AMERICA program on the Voice of America.

Happy Potter and the Untranslatable Names

Language Level: Intermediate

Source: Speak Up, edition 242

Standard: American Accent

Harry Potter and the Untranslatable Names

Many reasons have been given for the phenomenal popularity of J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter books. For some critics, it is the narrator’s magical mix of narrative tricks: for others she has simply captured the mood of the moment. Yet few acknowledge her gift for language. For translators, who have contributed to the international success of the Harry Potter series the books represent a major challenger.

J.R.R. Tolkien’s epic, Lord of the Rings, conjured up mystical locations and forgotten languages with names of hobbits, elves and dark powers. In a less dramatic way – but just as effectively – J.K. Rowling evokes a world with names for people, places and spells, and even a new sport, Quidditch.

EVOKING CHARACTER

Like many common English surnames (such as Smith, Wright, Cooper and Taylor), Potter was originally a trade name.  Yet the fact that the potter is a “maker of pots” would suggest that Harry is more creative.

Hermione’s sophisticated name instantly tells us that she is upper class. Dudley Dursley sounds dull, unpleasant and middle class. Draco Malfoy, by contrast, is the the perfect name for a villain. Draco is Latin for dragon or snake, and Malfoy comes from old French for bad faith. His friends sound suitably evil: Crabbe sounds like a crab, while Goyle sounds like gargoyle, the grotesque face on a medieval cathedral.

Voldemort’s name is the most sinister of all, suggesting desire for death of death wish, even if there is a Valemort character in Shakespeare’s Henry V.

LOST IN TRANSLATION

Serena Daniel an editor of the Harry Potter series in Europe explains the delicate choices that translating presented: “The names of people and places almost always contain an allusion, a parody, a pun”. Offer they stuck with the original English forms. How could you translate Hogwarts, Hagrid or Dobby? Some translated names echo the meaning, Oliver Wood has a typically solid English surname: (Olivio Wood in Brazil “filching” reflects a bad character as filching is slang for stealing.

But it’s not possible to capture everything. The Minister of Magic, Cornelius Fudge is a good example. A first meaning is a sweet, but a secondary meaning  of fudge is to avoid commitment or decision – a typical politician trait.

Headmaster, Albus Dumbiedore’s surname begins with the word dumb, meaning mute. It’s unlikely that Brazilian readers (Alvo Dumbiedore) will capture the meaning, besides the English name sounds friendlier, like a bumbling old man. Dumbledore is also an archaic word for bumblebee, as Rowling imagined him strolling around Hogwarts humming. It also suggests he has a sting in his tail.

NAMES AND DESTINIES

Rowling also uses names to shape our expectations of a character. Snape (Severo Snape) is not a real word, but it sounds harsh and cruel. Many words beginning with “sn” have a negative meaning: snake and snare, snoop and snarl, snip and snap. By contrast, Quirrel (Professor Quirrel) sounds timid and uncertain: like a squirrel. It is a fantastic plot twist when Snape  turns out to be on Harry’s side and  Quirell a follower of Voldemort. Rowling’s nonsense word for non-wizards, muggles (trouxas), sounds like a cross between muddled and mug. A mug is not only for drinking, it is also slang for an ignorant person, easily tricked. When Draco wants to insult a halfblood, he calls them mudbloods. This perjorative word conveys the snobbery, even racism, against magicians, with Muggle parents.

KEEP IT SIMPLE

Rowling’s names are inventively borrowed from history, mythology, geography, literature and various languages. Hedwig (Edwiges) and Ronan were saints. Dursley and Flitwick are English towns. Flint is a scary character in the children’s classic, Treasure Island. Fawkes is named after Guy Fawkes, the man who tried to blow up the Houses of Parliament in 1605: a good name for a fiery phoenix.

“Translating the name is one of the pleasures that go with this book,” said Beatrice Massini, a European interpreter of J.K. Rowling. “It’s necessary to find the right balance between the suffocating search for synonyms and the book’s right to simplicity.”