Rumors come to a halt with the wise

[GoodTaste]

The phrase "Rumors come to a halt with the wise" is a translation by me from Chinese. It tends to mean that rumors are usually rampant among ignorant people, but they will stop or be stopped with wise people who have the ability to see through the lies and break them.

Is the phrase natural in English? How do you native speakers express the phenomenon?

 

[tedmc]

That sounds reasonable to me.

Or "The wise know better than to spread rumours".

 

[GoodTaste]

A canard comes to a halt with the wise.

The phrase above is probably better than "Rumors come to a halt with the wise", because a rumor can be true while a canard is false intended to deceive people. Why do the wise want to stop an unofficial story that is true and interesting? So "Rumors come to a halt with the wise" or "Rumors stop with the wise" may sound odd in native speakers' ears. I am not sure.

That sounds reasonable to me.

Or "The wise know better than to spread rumours".

The use of the word rumours is a question unresolved.

 

[emsr2d2]

I'm pretty sure I'm not going to turn out to be the only native speaker here who has never heard/used the word "canard" to mean "rumour". I had to look it up. All I see when I see the word is a French duck!

 

[GoodTaste]

I'm pretty sure I'm not going to turn out to be the only native speaker here who has never heard/used the word "canard" to mean "rumour". I had to look it up. All I see when I see the word is a French duck!

The first definition of canard in Cambridge Dictionary:

canard noun [ C ] literary
UK /ˈkæn.ɑːd/ US /kəˈnɑːrd/
a false report or piece of information that is intended to deceive people

So it is a case of how a prestigious dictionary of English can be "misleading".

If "canard" was unnatural and "rumor" was faulty, then how to edit the phrase to make it better? Can we use "False allegation comes to a haul with the wise"? It sounds awkward.

 

[GoodTaste]

Haven't you noticed that I've put "misleading" in quotation marks? Which means it is not really misleading.

The question about the use of "rumor", the word that could be used to mean "a true, interesting and unofficial story", has not been solved.

Is "rumors come to a halt with the wise" unambiguous to you?

 

[PeterCW]

I happened to know the word, but "A canard comes to a halt with the wise" struck me as most unnatural.

While knowing the meaning of the word in English I have only used it in French. It isn't widely used and a lot of native speakers will not understand it without recourse to a dictionary.

 

[GoodTaste]

Is rumors used correctly in the OP?

 

[emsr2d2]

If "canard" was unnatural and "rumor" was faulty, then how [STRIKE]to[/STRIKE] can I edit the phrase to make it better? Can we use "False allegations comes to a [STRIKE]haul[/STRIKE] halt with the wise"? It sounds awkward.

"False allegations" doesn't mean the same as "rumours".

What do you mean by "faulty" regarding "rumours". Words aren't "faulty". They're right or wrong.

 

[GoodTaste]

"False allegations" doesn't mean the same as "rumours".

What do you mean by "faulty" regarding "rumours". Words aren't "faulty". They're right or wrong.

"Faulty" here mean "having defects". The phrase in the OP is a translation and using "rumor" would make the translation not as accurate as using "canard" would. That is why the word "rumors" is faulty in the translation.

But "canard", though being a perfect counterpart of the Chinese word, is uncommon to you native speakers. Hence the problem of this thread is up in the air.

 

[GoodTaste]

How about "Rumors stop with the wise"?

 

[Rover_KE]

That still sounds strange.

 

[tedmc]

What about this (from Post #2)?

The wise know better than to spread rumours.

 

[GoodTaste]

That would still sound strange even if you corrected the subject/verb agreement error.

Then the translation appears to be a Mission Impossible.

An attempt for a simpler version:

The wise break lies, while fools take baits.

OK. Just "the wise break lies."

 

[tedmc]

Then the translation appears to be a Mission Impossible.

An attempt for a simpler version:

The wise break lies, while fools take baits.

OK. Just "the wise break lies."

Translation cannot alwaysr be exact or it will not be natural in the language that something is translated to.

 

[GoesStation]

I'm pretty sure I'm not going to turn out to be the only native speaker here who has never heard/used the word "canard" to mean "rumour". I had to look it up. All I see when I see the word is a French duck!

A canard is, in English, a piece of misinformation that may be widely believed. It has other meanings too, including an airplane horizontal stabilizer mounted forward of the wing.

 

[TheParser]

NOT A TEACHER

GoodTaste, as is my wont, I checked the Web.

I found a nice translation that seems pleasant-sounding to me: "Rumors stop at the door of the wise."

I found this translation in a document written in 1917 by a Chinese statesman who was discussing the political situation in China in that year. (The source is entitled "Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States.")

*****

By the way, I think that there is some similarity to another Chinese saying that some Americans like to quote: "Those who know do not speak. Those who speak do not know."