This question was closed without grading. Reason: Other
Feb 22 15:49
2 mos ago
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English term
Russian Federation
Multilingual Obersprachdientsleiter
Native in: Russian 
Works in: English to Russian, Russian to English, German to Russian, and 11 more.
Whine
English
Art/Literary
Poetry & Literature
Fiction
I am translating and self-publishing some Stephen Crane's stories into my native language. I am struggling with a sentence of Chapter V of the Monster, which is the last in the passage below.
"At one of these houses a woman came to the door bearing a lamp, shielding her face from its rays with her hands. Across the cropped grass the avenue represented to her a kind of black torrent, upon which, nevertheless, fled numerous miraculous figures upon bicycles. She did not know that the towering light at the corner was continuing its nightly whine".
For broader context, please visit https://web.archive.org/web/20110111172816/http://etext.lib....
While I know the meaning of the specific words, I cannot quite grasp what the "towering light at the corner" means here and why it is 'whining' at nights. If it's a street light, why did she not know it as she could see it in the dark? If it refers to the fire alarm, why is it at the corner? In other words, I would be grateful if someone could rephrase it somehow to get a better idea what is the meaning behind this sentence.
Thanks in advance.
"At one of these houses a woman came to the door bearing a lamp, shielding her face from its rays with her hands. Across the cropped grass the avenue represented to her a kind of black torrent, upon which, nevertheless, fled numerous miraculous figures upon bicycles. She did not know that the towering light at the corner was continuing its nightly whine".
For broader context, please visit https://web.archive.org/web/20110111172816/http://etext.lib....
While I know the meaning of the specific words, I cannot quite grasp what the "towering light at the corner" means here and why it is 'whining' at nights. If it's a street light, why did she not know it as she could see it in the dark? If it refers to the fire alarm, why is it at the corner? In other words, I would be grateful if someone could rephrase it somehow to get a better idea what is the meaning behind this sentence.
Thanks in advance.
Responses
| 4 +6 | noise from the (electric arc) street lights |
Yvonne Gallagher
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| 4 +1 | humming or hissing |
Veronika Groke
|
Responses
+6
2 hrs
Yvonne Gallagher
Ireland
Ireland
Native in English
&
English
Specializes in field
Ireland
right word, right place. everytime
Native in: English (Variants: US, Canadian, Irish, UK) 
Works in: French to English, Spanish to English, English, and 1 more.
Related KudoZ points
:
317
noise from the (electric arc) street lights
I found the story online and read it from the start to beyond this point. It's quite clear the "whine" is the noise of the street lights. They are mentioned several times at the start of the story
The fire happens just after this so you could say the "whine" is figurative too; the Jimmy whining to be allowed stay out when it soon becomes clear that he almost dies in the fire as he is in bed, until rescued from the fire.
https://www.vice.com/en/article/yp3gk5/a-century-ago-singing...
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Note added at 2 hrs (2024-02-22 18:10:06 GMT)
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OOPS, It's not "Jimmy" who is whining but a kid called "Willie". Sorry. Forget about that then. However, it's certainly the street lights.
"she did not know that the towering light at the corner was continuing its nightly whine".
Maybe she thought the light had been switched off, or that it had gone quiet? ...
From earlier in the story it's clear it is the street light
"The shimmering blue of the electric arc-lamps was strong in the main
street of the town."
"the electric light still hung high,"
"high in the air, the blue-burning globes of the arc lamps caused the wonderful traceries of leaf shadows on the ground..."
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Note added at 2 hrs (2024-02-22 18:15:05 GMT)
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the woman had to take a lamp as there was no electric light in the house
Perhaps the street light hadn't been installed that long?
https://jeffersonpatterson.wordpress.com/2021/08/10/moonligh...
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Note added at 2 hrs (2024-02-22 18:16:16 GMT)
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story is from 1898 when these lamps were being installed
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Note added at 2 hrs (2024-02-22 18:30:36 GMT)
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https://solar.lowtechmagazine.com/2009/01/moonlight-towers-l...
"...The US quickly became the leader of electric arc lighting. In 1884 there were already more than 90,000 arc lamps lighting the night sky in the US, and that number rose to 235,000 in 1890, when virtually every US city was using arc lighting, more than 400,000 in 1902 and almost 700,000 in 1907. But it was not just in numbers that the US outstripped Europe and Great Britain.
Moonlight towers
While European cities placed electric candles on posts, like we do today with street lights, the Americans had the idea of lighting entire cities and villages by means of a grid of towers that stood up to 300 feet (90 metres) tall.
These structures, sometimes resembling oversized oil derricks, were equipped with 4 to 6 arc lights of 2,000 to 6,000 candle power each. Most of them burnt all night and all year (except at full moon) although
some cities turned the lights off around midnight.
The fire happens just after this so you could say the "whine" is figurative too; the Jimmy whining to be allowed stay out when it soon becomes clear that he almost dies in the fire as he is in bed, until rescued from the fire.
https://www.vice.com/en/article/yp3gk5/a-century-ago-singing...
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Note added at 2 hrs (2024-02-22 18:10:06 GMT)
--------------------------------------------------
OOPS, It's not "Jimmy" who is whining but a kid called "Willie". Sorry. Forget about that then. However, it's certainly the street lights.
"she did not know that the towering light at the corner was continuing its nightly whine".
Maybe she thought the light had been switched off, or that it had gone quiet? ...
From earlier in the story it's clear it is the street light
"The shimmering blue of the electric arc-lamps was strong in the main
street of the town."
"the electric light still hung high,"
"high in the air, the blue-burning globes of the arc lamps caused the wonderful traceries of leaf shadows on the ground..."
--------------------------------------------------
Note added at 2 hrs (2024-02-22 18:15:05 GMT)
--------------------------------------------------
the woman had to take a lamp as there was no electric light in the house
Perhaps the street light hadn't been installed that long?
https://jeffersonpatterson.wordpress.com/2021/08/10/moonligh...
--------------------------------------------------
Note added at 2 hrs (2024-02-22 18:16:16 GMT)
--------------------------------------------------
story is from 1898 when these lamps were being installed
--------------------------------------------------
Note added at 2 hrs (2024-02-22 18:30:36 GMT)
--------------------------------------------------
https://solar.lowtechmagazine.com/2009/01/moonlight-towers-l...
"...The US quickly became the leader of electric arc lighting. In 1884 there were already more than 90,000 arc lamps lighting the night sky in the US, and that number rose to 235,000 in 1890, when virtually every US city was using arc lighting, more than 400,000 in 1902 and almost 700,000 in 1907. But it was not just in numbers that the US outstripped Europe and Great Britain.
Moonlight towers
While European cities placed electric candles on posts, like we do today with street lights, the Americans had the idea of lighting entire cities and villages by means of a grid of towers that stood up to 300 feet (90 metres) tall.
These structures, sometimes resembling oversized oil derricks, were equipped with 4 to 6 arc lights of 2,000 to 6,000 candle power each. Most of them burnt all night and all year (except at full moon) although
some cities turned the lights off around midnight.
Peer comment(s):
| agree |
Arabic & More
3 hrs
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Many thanks for your comment in Dbox. I did indeed read the story as otherwise there wasn't enough context to be sure.
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| agree |
Michael Beijer
: not sure what the sentence means, but the word ‘whine’ probably refers to the sound of those lights (as I mentioned in the d.box) / :-)
3 hrs
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I am sure but only because I read the story and researched the type of light. I only saw the Dbox after posting,
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| agree |
Jennifer Levey
: This conjures up vivid memories of my childhood, wondering why the street-lights always sounded sad as they tried to show me the way home through the smog...
6 hrs
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Thank you! What a lovely way of expressing it! Yes, I have similar memories
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| agree |
Daryo
: Definitely that. I remember this kind of street lights, although I wouldn't call the noise they were making a "whine", but then there's this thing called "poetic licence" ...
7 hrs
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Many thanks. Well, if someone doesn't like the noise they could imagine it as a whine , or whine about it!
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| agree |
Michele Fauble
8 hrs
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Many thanks
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| agree |
Veronika Groke
: Yes, the arc lamps did make noise (see additional answer).
19 hrs
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Thanks. Don't understand why you needed to repeat what I said?
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+1
21 hrs
Veronika Groke
United Kingdom
United Kingdom
Specializes in field
United Kingdom
Ger Eng translator, PhD Anthropology
Native in: German
Works in: German to English, English to German, Spanish to English, and 1 more.
humming or hissing
I had a quick look, and it turns out that yes, the earliest street lights (the arc lamps mentioned in the story) were noisy: 'The problem with this method of lighting, apart from the dullness of the light and inefficient use of electricity was a constant humming, shrieking or hissing noise emitted by the electric arc.'
The way I understand the sentence within the context, I would rephrase it to something like this: 'Across the cropped grass, the avenue represented to her a kind of black torrent, on which she could nevertheless see some figures flitting past on bicycles. She was surprised/startled that she could see them despite the darkness, because she was unaware that the street light at the corner was turned on, which was emitting the light that illuminated the figures along with a kind of shrieking sound.'
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Note added at 21 hrs (2024-02-23 13:08:23 GMT)
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And I would guess that the reason the woman isn't aware of the street being on is that she is carrying her own lamp, which is lighting her surroundings and is clearly quite bright (she is shielding her face from it). As others have already pointed out, these street lamps would have been quite new at the time the story was written, so it might also be that that's the reason the woman isn't thinking about it - she's not used to there being street lights at all yet.
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Note added at 21 hrs (2024-02-23 13:08:52 GMT)
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*street light being on
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Note added at 1 day 27 mins (2024-02-23 16:17:45 GMT)
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Sorry Yvonne if you felt that I was just echoing you, but I mainly added this answer because Evgeny in his original post had asked how the passage he was finding tricky could be rephrased to make it clearer. I guess I could have done without the quote about the noise.
The way I understand the sentence within the context, I would rephrase it to something like this: 'Across the cropped grass, the avenue represented to her a kind of black torrent, on which she could nevertheless see some figures flitting past on bicycles. She was surprised/startled that she could see them despite the darkness, because she was unaware that the street light at the corner was turned on, which was emitting the light that illuminated the figures along with a kind of shrieking sound.'
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Note added at 21 hrs (2024-02-23 13:08:23 GMT)
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And I would guess that the reason the woman isn't aware of the street being on is that she is carrying her own lamp, which is lighting her surroundings and is clearly quite bright (she is shielding her face from it). As others have already pointed out, these street lamps would have been quite new at the time the story was written, so it might also be that that's the reason the woman isn't thinking about it - she's not used to there being street lights at all yet.
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Note added at 21 hrs (2024-02-23 13:08:52 GMT)
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*street light being on
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Note added at 1 day 27 mins (2024-02-23 16:17:45 GMT)
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Sorry Yvonne if you felt that I was just echoing you, but I mainly added this answer because Evgeny in his original post had asked how the passage he was finding tricky could be rephrased to make it clearer. I guess I could have done without the quote about the noise.
Discussion
It was only at that point that I saw and read the Dbox entries.
And yes, Jennifer and Arabic & More are quite right. I spent some time on this
edited for typos
You overlook the fact that K-points are supposed to be awarded for answers that are most 'useful' to the Asker, regardless of whether or not you, the Asker, think they are 'correct'.
There's no doubt in my mind that Yvonne's research is worth at least 6 K-points, regardless of how 'correct' you think it is.
Answering the last comment: the thing is it's no illusion: there ARE people and fire carts fleeing along the street to the fire.
• https://edisontechcenter.org/ArcLamps.html (‘-Created a buzzing sound and flickering as the light burned’)
• https://www.vice.com/en/article/yp3gk5/a-century-ago-singing...
• https://120years.net/the-singing-arcwilliam-duddeluk1899/