Non-ProZ.com Jul 5, 2005:

I am translating this into French, so I found a way to structure the sentence so that "alter Hut" would refer to an attitude or creative ideas, and not to the man himself. Thank goodness for French's flexible and convoluted sentence structures! Context: the author was making a pun about his actual hat, but at the same time saying something about his personality. That's why I just couldn't switch to camel. ;-) Thank you all for your input! Even non-hat related suggestions were useful and helped me grasp the meaning. I will try to select the answer that is the best fit for ProZ's KudoZ Glossaries.

Craig Meulen Jul 5, 2005:

Hi "m": when we ask for context, we need more than one sentence! What were the lines leading up to this, what is the subject of the article/text? Cut and paste us the few lines around this quote perhaps ... :-)

Non-ProZ.com Jul 5, 2005:

English please... Since, as mentioned, I do not speak a word of German, please write answers that I can understand. Otherwise, I won't be able to grade this thread and pick an answer.

Non-ProZ.com Jul 5, 2005:

"you don't really say of a person that he/she is old hat, you say this of a thing." => Thank you, BrigitteHilgner! I am translating a translation, so the German original might have said "old-hat attitudes/ideas" or something. The English translation turned out as "I am not old hat".

Non-ProZ.com Jul 5, 2005:

Oops - correcting myself... Actually, the meaning of the expression might very well be: "I am not old hat" => "I have original ideas" (in this context). The guy wears a hat too, hence the importance of keeping the hat metaphor.

Klaus Herrmann Jul 5, 2005:

You may need to give us more context, as the "alte Kamellen" is more like "old news" than your "old hat".

Non-ProZ.com Jul 5, 2005:

More context The context is "I am not old hat" , and I cannot switch to "old camel" because the hat metaphor has to be retained.