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Heaven #4776 The Warmth of the Sun
Posted November 16th, 2013 by Normand Bo...
Dear Gloria
in http://www.heavenletters.org/the-warmth-of-the-sun.html
last parag.
"Not only does life change, you also change. What is in your hands may seem like dross, yet it can be gold. If it is not gold, it can be the predecessor of gold. Welcome whatever comes for the placeholder that it is. Give credit to your life and to yourself. Give credit. Be like a host to your life. Serve tea."
I am not sure what meaning I should give to "placeholder". The sentence says that whatever comes is a placeholder. But a placeholder of what or for what? Is it a substitute like dross is a placeholder for gold?
Thanks
I believe this is the the
I believe this is the the point that God is making. He is implicit, however, rather than explicit. He wants the reader to discover this himself. He doesn't say substitute. He says placeholder. Not quite the same.
Love you.
So what would be the
So what would be the appropriate definition of placeholder in this context? I cannot find the implicit meaning of it since I don't even understand the explicit one.
You make me smile, Normand!
You make me smile, Normand!
Here are the definitions I found on Google:
In terms of mathematics, a significant zero in the decimal representation
In terms of linguistics, an element of a sentence that is required by syntactic constraints but carries little or no semantic information, for example the word it as a subject in it is a pity that she left, where the true subject is that she left.
Noun
1. placeholder - a person authorized to act for another procurator, proxyagent - a representative who acts on behalf of other persons or organizations
2. placeholder - a symbol in a logical or mathematical expression that can be replaced by the name of any member of specified set variable - a symbol (like x or y) that is used in mathematical or logical expressions to represent a variable quantity
My personal understanding has been: If I saved a seat for you -- if I sat in your seat until you got back, I would be a placeholder for you. A placeholder is temporary. A placeholder doesn't stay there forever. In my definition, a placecard would also be a placeholder. If I put a card on your seat with your name, that would also be a placeholder for you until you get there.
Of course, I had no idea about mathematics or linquistics in this connection. Perhaps these impartial definitions do the trick for you. Do they help? I may be understanding the math a little bit. In algebra, x is a place holder. It represents more than one number.
Please let us know what you make of placeholder now!
Dear Gloria,I have already
Dear Gloria,
I have already been through all those definitions.
I have also checked french translation websites and there is a unanimity among users that there is no really satisfactory translations for "placeholder".
The best approximations that are acceptable are "substituant" (not 'substitute' but something that allows substitution or replacement like "marqueur" (marker), "balise" (tag). There are also 'paramètre substituable' (substituable parameter), 'espace réservé' (reserved space), 'paramètre fictif' (fictitious parameter), 'marque de réservation' (reservation mark).
In the context of this sentence, I think that 'substituant' would be the most appropriate.
I wonderd how other translators dealt with that word (Paula?)