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wheelchair

OlgaZi

Senior Member
russian
Hello, everyone who can help me!

I am translating the poem «The Voluble Wheelchair» by Ogden Nash into Russian language.

The full text is here among other poems (posted by big blue letters): Favorite Poem? - Page 4 - Dimensions Forums

I am afraid that I don’t understand the title the right way.

The matter is the word “wheelchair” does not occur in the text. So what can be sense of the title concerning to this poem?

What do you think? Thank you.
The wheelchair symbolizes
- old age
- the kind of curmugeonly old age described
- disability, particularly inability to adapt to the present.

“Roll along” refers to it.
The Voluble Wheel Chair is the old person who has to spend their time sitting in the wheel chair. It's a humorous way of referring to such a person. Obviously, the chair itself cannot talk.

double x-post
Thank you very much!

But dear Se16teddy what do you mean: “Roll along” refers to it?
Yes, the poem catalogues all the sorts of things that old people (represented by the voluble wheelchair of the title) supposedly complain about. But then the last verse reveals that some complaints are universal – everyone makes them, regardless of their age.
But dear Se16teddy what do you mean: “Roll along” refers to it?
You said "the word “wheelchair” does not occur in the text", and teddy said that "roll along" is a reference to the wheelchair in the poem (one rolls along in their wheelchair).
Thank you Lingobingo, I also understand common sense of this poem as you. You approve my thoughts.
But I think that this one drive a car (not wheelchair) but too slow, so other drivers needs to overtake his car on a road. Because "and everyone drives to fast but you".
Am I right?
No. I did think for a moment that it might have meant a golf buggy (because of the reference to putts), but it must mean a motorised wheelchair (which you “drive”).
Like Olga, I'd say that the first two lines in the poem both refer to driving a car:
When you roll along admiring the view,
And everyone drives too fast but you;

It's not easy to roll along admiring the view in a wheelchair, even a motorised one....
Like Olga, I'd say that the first two lines in the poem both refer to driving a car:
When you roll along admiring the view,
And everyone drives too fast but you;

It's not easy to roll along admiring the view in a wheelchair, even a motorised one....
I agree with both if you. I took it to be a reference to a car as well, especially as I have direct experience of being driven by my parents (aged 86 and 87): dad's always asking why other people drive so fast.👁 Big Grin :D
Thank you. So I see that my point of you for the first two lines is reasonable 👁 Smile :)
Okay, I accept that it makes perfect sense if a car is meant. But where does that leave us with regard to the wheelchair of the title? There’s now no obvious justification for that, it’s just a bad metaphor.
Okay, I accept that it makes perfect sense if a car is meant. But where does that leave us with regard to the wheelchair of the title? There’s now no obvious justification for that, it’s just a bad metaphor.
It's just a metaphor. Why does it need to be justified or classed as 'good' or 'bad'? It works for me as a symbol of old age and perceived disabilities, as I said above.
My vocabulary gives me only literal sense translations for "wheelchair". Thanks to the above answers I have understand that it has ironical meaning for old age and so on.
So I need find in Russian language an ironical equivalent for old people, who like scold but does not recognize themselves as old people yet. And it will not contain word "wheelchair" as a chair that someone who cannot walk uses for moving around.
I disagree that "roll along" refers to the movement of a wheelchair. I understand it to describe how the speaker drives his car on the highway: slowly, as the elderly do, and much more slowly than other motorists. "Wheelchair" is there metaphorically, rather than literally; I don't think the speaker is really disabled, but is instead merely beginning to feel the effects of aging. Note that this appeared in the New Yorker magazine in January of 1953, which means that Ogden Nash wrote this when he was 50 -- an age when men do notice that they are certainly no longer young.
I don’t know about everybody else, but when I read a poem I usually start with the heading, go on to the first part, and then (sometimes) continue to the end. On this basis, the first bit of the poem is:
The Voluble Wheel Chair. When you roll along ...
At this point, how can you possibly think that “roll along” means anything other than travelling in a wheelchair?
Thank you GreenWhiteBlue, your comment about Ogden Nash age when the poem was written is very interesting and useful. I think it is a good idea to do such research during translation or before. I will take note for future.
I don’t know about everybody else, but when I read a poem I usually start with the heading, go on to the first part, and then (sometimes) continue to the end. On this basis, the first bit of the poem is:
The Voluble Wheel Chair. When you roll along ...
At this point, how can you possibly think that “roll along” means anything other than travelling in a wheelchair?
At that point you can't. However, when you reach the end of the second line, when Nash has just said that as you are rolling along you are admiring the view, while everyone else is driving too fast, it is clear that 1) your "rolling along" is driving, which is not a term used with a wheelchair in 1953, and 2) since everyone else is also driving the same way, albeit they are driving too fast, and it is highly unlikely that they are in wheelchairs, one realizes that Nash is describing the attributes of old age generally. These attributes include driving cars more slowly than other motorists, rather than rolling along slowly in a literal wheelchair.
So you think that Nash is unaware that many people start reading poems at the beginning?
I think that you are unaware that Nash frequently gave names to his humorous poems that are allusions to other things, rather than to things in the poem itself.

A prime example is the title of "Very Like a Whale", which is in fact a reference to a line in Hamlet, and has nothing directly to do with Byron's poem "The Destruction of Sennacherib". You may also consider what the connection is between the title of Nash's poem Samson Agonistes, and the content
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