expressive word "dear"(liebe) is: dear Mary, dear God, the dear
emperor, the dear prince, the dear man, the dear child. I do not
know if one can say this word "liebe" in Latin or in other
languages with so much depth of emotion that it pierces the heart
and echoes throughout as it does in our tongue.

I think that St. Luke, as a master of the Hebrew and Greek
tongues, wanted to clarify and articulate the Greek word
"kecharitomene" that the angel used. And I think that the angel
Gabriel spoke with Mary just as he spoke with Daniel, when he
called him "Chamudoth" and "Ish chamudoth, vir desiriorum", that
is "Dear Daniel." That is the way Gabriel speaks, as we can see
in Daniel. Now if I were to literally translate the words of the
angel, and use the skills of these asses, I would have to
translate it as "Daniel, you man of desires" or "Daniel, you man
of lust". Oh, that would be beautiful German! A German would, of
course, recognize "Man", "Lueste" and "begirunge" as being German
words, although not altogether pure as "lust" and "begir" would be
better. But when those words are put together you get "you man of
desires" and no German is going to understand that. He might even
think that Daniel is full of lustful desires. Now wouldn't that
be a fine translation! So I have to let the literal words go and
try to discover how the German says what the Hebrew "ish
chamudoth" expresses. I discover that the German says this, "You
dear Daniel", "you dear Mary", or "you gracious maiden", "you
lovely maiden", "you gentle girl" and so on. A translator must
have a large vocabulary so he can have more words for when a
particular one just does not fit in the context.

Why should I talk about translating so much? I would need an