the wrong side of

質問

In my favorite sci-fi drama, I came across the sentence "Boys meets girl from the wrong side of the galaxy". In Japanese that means "少年が銀河の反対の少女と出会った".

Is the sentence "the wrong side of" commonly used even by non-native English speaker?

What is the other alternatives with easy-to-understanding even for non-native speaker? Is "the complete opposite of" one of the alternatives?

回答No.1

marbleshit · ベストアンサー

On behalf of some non-native English speakers, I can tell I don't clearly understand the image of "the wrong side of the galaxy" presisely, even if it's used in the world of science fiction.
I personally recognize the usage of that phrase mostly the case like "the wrong side of the track", which means a povety group in society.
Then, my alternative will be "the dark side of the galaxy", which is more common among Japanese, because of the association of the Pink Floyd's best-selling album title. Most of Japanese rock fan learned that "the dark side of the moon" meant the oppsite and invisible side of the moon, by purchasing and listening to their songs.
That's why I recommend that phrase for the alternative for the forementioned one.

お礼

Thank you very much for your reply on the "the wrong side of".

Also I appreciate that you give me another candidate "the dark side of the moon". The other side of the moon is really dark because of the direction of sun light. It is also interesting to know that the phrase is used in the album title.

回答No.5

d-y

When I read your post, the first thing that came into my mind was Romeo and Juliet.
After a quick Internet research, I also found that West Side Story is dubbed as a "typical 'boy meets a girl from the wrong side of the train tracks' story."
http://www.meredith.edu/english/walton/GregoryRobbins.htm

I am inclined to believe that "the wrong side" refers to the fact the boy and girl belong to different families, communities, space empires, etc., that are feuding each other.

I don't know whether non-natives use this kind of expression very often, but I would imagine that finding an appropriate (and succinct) alternative would be extremely difficult.

お礼

Thank you very much for your reply.

It is interesting to know that the sentence is used even in the West Side Story.

As you write, the sentence seems to be used in the two persons belonging to different societies.

I found this sentence in the sci-fi named "Star Trek: Voyager". In the drama, the spaceship was forcefully pushed into 70,000 light years from the Earth, which is actually totally different world to those belong to the Earth.

回答No.4

SPS700

It is simply a take-off on "the poor part of town" as below.
http://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/other+side+of+the+tracks
http://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/british/the-wrong-other-side-of-the-tracks

お礼

Thank you very much for your reply.

The link information is useful for more understanding the idiom.

回答No.3

Wungongchan

The primary meaning of “wrong” is “not good, not right, not proper, etc” and is not “opposite” as in “the opposite side of the street.” So, “銀河の反対側” sounds somewhat funny for the translation of “the wrong side of the galaxy.” I haven’t seen the drama and don’t know the story, but I’d rather translate it to something like “銀河の裏側” than “銀河の反対側”because often-used“on the wrong side of town” can mean “場末の、裏町の”

Now, to your question.
"The wrong side of” is not a phrase rarely used. One of the often-heard expressions is “stand on the wrong side of the fence”. For instance, you can say, “Most Egyptian demonstrators consider the Americans stand on the wrong side of the fence because Obama administration doesn’t support their protest.”『デモに参加している殆どのエジプト人はオバマ政権が自分達の抗議を支持しないのアメリカ人は自分達の味方ではないと思っている。』

I wish there’s an easy translation of “wrong side of”, but I’m afraid not.

お礼

Thank you very much for your reply.

So I recognized that the meaning of the "the wrong side of" is not just "the opposite side of" as you write, but including something not good. The sentence may be interpreted into Japanese with free interpretation not strict interpretation.

Also thank you for the example.

回答No.2

cincinnati

原文はおそらく少しばかり書き写すときに間違えたと思いますので、かってに少しばかり直してみました。

Those boys met a girl from the wrong side of the galaxy.

「少年たちはその銀河の好ましくない（あるいは望んでいない、あるいは計画外の）場所から来たある少女に会いました。」　wrongに対して本来の場所はright sideと言うのが話し手の頭にはあってこの文章となっていると思います。

慣用的な用法が少しばかり以下のＵＲＬで見られますので、ご参照ください。
http://eow.alc.co.jp/search?q=the+wrong+side+of&ref=sa

このＵＲＬにあるような用法は確かに英語を母語にしない方にはピンと来ないかもしれませんが、どれも映像としてうかんでくるような文章なので、このような使い方が出来ると英文が生きてくるように思います。

お礼

回答ありがとうございます。

リンクなどを見ていますと、the wrong side of の意味はどうもよい意味ではないようですね。

英語を母国語でない人とも話をしたいので、この用法はあまり使わないでおこうと思いました。