拖慢了十餘秒的行程

[Lu]

Another translation question. Hong Kong, 1970s, a man drives through the city in a great rush.

 

幸好，由於未到下班時間，沿途的交通都很順暢。只是經過海底隧道時，那個笨手笨腳的收費員拖慢了十餘秒的行程，夏嘉瀚已經說不用找零錢，對方仍呆頭呆腦地遲遲不放行。

 

My question is about 拖慢了十餘秒的行程. Does this mean the toll booth guy makes the transaction take 10+ seconds longer, or that he makes a transaction that was supposed to only take 10+ seconds take longer? The English translator has 'the clumsy toll-booth cashier cost him an extra ten seconds' and my colleague agrees, but personally I cannot see this in that sentence, I still read it as a transaction that was supposed to take 10+ seconds and takes longer.

 

What do people here think? Thanks for any advice!

[Publius]

I agree with the English translator and your colleague.

行程 usually means the whole trip, therefore unlikely to be measured in seconds.

If I wanted to express the other meaning, I would use 原本只需十餘秒的過程 + 被 or 把 construction.

Make sense?

[Lu]

30 minutes ago, Publius said:

I agree with the English translator and your colleague.

By now the majority is overwhelming. I'll amend my translation. Thanks for weighing in!

 

Could you explain the grammar in this one? I read it as:

Central verb: 拖慢.

Who is 拖慢ing? The 收费员

What did the 收费员 拖慢? The 行程 that was 十餘秒.

Clearly I'm wrong, but I'm not sure where.

[Publius]

After giving it a closer look, yeah, this is indeed a weird construction.

If you google "耽誤了一天的行程", 一天 which is supposed to quantify 行程, almost always means the delta (delayed by) amount. It seems 行程 is used to qualify 一天 instead.

I have no explanations. It just seems the most natural way...

Is it even possible to use 的 to indicate an appositive relationship like the English 'of' ('the city of London', 'that fool of a husband')?

Another example: 最近吃了睡，睡了吃，長了十公斤的體重. In this case, 十公斤 should be the central word, 體重 merely points out the nature of that 10 kilo. Am I right?

[imron]

Although my first impression was also the same as the English translator, after thinking about it a bit, from a logical point of view it seems weird that he'd care about a delay of 10 seconds (unless it's some sort of race and he's trying to get a best time or something).  10 seconds is basically the time it takes to turn off the engine, put on the handbrake, undo your seatbelt and get out of the car.

 

I can't see someone fussing about that amount of time over the course of a trip that spans the city, though perhaps it makes more sense in the context of the novel?

[Lu]

His son has been kidnapped and the kidnapper has given him a limited amount of time to get from A to B, so he's very stressed and every second of delay is two seconds too many. I've never timed toll-paying but it sounds plausible enough for me that someone who passes through it often can pay in 10 seconds.

[imron]

Ok, that makes more sense then.

[somethingfunny]

How about that, I'd have gone with you Lu.  The English sounds much more compelling.

 

"He made the process ten seconds longer than it needed to be."

"He drew out a mere ten second process."

[陳德聰]

6 hours ago, Lu said:

拖慢了十餘秒的行程

 

To me this is a permutation of:

 

（他）拖慢行程拖慢了十餘秒

 

我看了一天的書 <- this book doesn't take a day to read, I just read a whole day's worth of it.

 

Since I think this is an analogous case, I'd say: "he dawdled away 10+ seconds of (precious) travel time".

 

I think saying it was "extra" is not accurate, unless the speaker did not realise there was a toll there at all. Presumably even if the speaker had gotten a fast toll-booth person, they would have had to spend at least some of the seconds contained in the 10+ seconds to effect the transaction.

 

Edit: Sorry I find I always have extra thoughts after hitting enter...

 

I didn't mention that I translate 拖慢 as dawdle or to just drag something out, but I think I was trying to imply that the complement is of duration not of result/degree or whatever. But in theory it should be able to also do what 耽誤 does if you set up whatever right conditions necessary.

[Lu]

15 minutes ago, 陳德聰 said:

（他）拖慢行程拖慢了十餘秒

Thanks, this makes sense. I still can't quite wrap my mind around it, but I'm getting there.

 

I now have 'Alleen door die kluns van een tolbeambte bij de Cross-Harbour Tunnel liep hij zeker tien seconden vertraging op.' (Only because of that idiot of a toll booth cashier at the Cross-Harbour Tunnel he was delayed by at least ten seconds.) No extra. This man has lived in HK for three years, I'm pretty sure he'd know about the toll.