[Segismundo]

Am going through a book about the Armir and am slightly mystified by the following sentence (the writer is complaining about the books on offer): "I nostri generali hanno scritto dozzine di memoriali sovente ricchi di miserabile denuncia postume, sovente aridi come gli 'specchi' delle 'manovre con i quadri.'"

Could anybody tell me what these "specchi" and these "manovre con i quadri" (both terms are in quotation marks in the original) might be (apart from boring parts of a book)? I'd be very grateful.

[Segismundo]

Segismundo, on 19 January 2012 - 12:37 PM, said:

Am going through a book about the Armir and am slightly mystified by the following sentence (the writer is complaining about the books on offer): "I nostri generali hanno scritto dozzine di memoriali sovente ricchi di miserabile denuncia postume, sovente aridi come gli 'specchi' delle 'manovre con i quadri.'"

Could anybody tell me what these "specchi" and these "manovre con i quadri" (both terms are in quotation marks in the original) might be (apart from boring parts of a book)? I'd be very grateful.

Perhaps I asked too quickly, as looking around a bit I think I answered my own question. An Italian translation of a report by George Marshall uses the term "manovre con i quadri" for what Marshall calls in English "command post exercises." The "specchi," I suppose, are charts or outlines.

[madmike]

I don't have the book. Please, would you write the phrares before and after?

because 'specchi', means 'mirrors' (aridi come specchi will be ' arid like mirrors', that is not of common use in italian, but may have a sense),but is better to know which is the complete sense.

[arturolorioli]

Segismundo, on 19 January 2012 - 12:50 PM, said:

Perhaps I asked too quickly, as looking around a bit I think I answered my own question. An Italian translation of a report by George Marshall uses the term "manovre con i quadri" for what Marshall calls in English "command post exercises." The "specchi," I suppose, are charts or outlines.

Guess you got the trasnaltion right, even if the phrase is a bit cryptic in italian too

[Segismundo]

madmike, on 19 January 2012 - 04:32 PM, said:

I don't have the book. Please, would you write the phrares before and after?

because 'specchi', means 'mirrors' (aridi come specchi will be ' arid like mirrors', that is not of common use in italian, but may have a sense),but is better to know which is the complete sense.

I don't have the book (La strada del davai) in front of me just now, but if I remember right the sentences before and after shed no light on these "specchi" and these "manovre." They have nothing to do with these details. In any case, that the "specchi" are in "virgolette" suggests that the meaning isn't a literal one.