Sex and Nervousness

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Granted that the English prose is the system of relationships, it has to be made clear what type of relationships will make for a specific language situation. Therefore, if the teachers and students at large do not pay special heed, they'll be liable to be trapped in the misinterpretation of the communication at hand, Dano says.

Dano's lecture:

In the cinema [The American President], Actor Michael Douglas says to Actress Anette Bening, who bashes into the presidential room of the White House and assures to herself that she will leave him once and for all. He is confident about her. He says to her that "You're attracted to me." And he tells her that her problem is sex and nervousness. She asks him challengingly and unbelievably, saying, "My problem is sex and nervousness?" He answers yes, and she, as if to make a great decision, asks about the whereabouts of the rest room and after a while she appears with a sleeping gown. A little perplexed at her unexpected appearance, he stammers and she approaches him and hugs him, calling him in heated whispers, "Andy!"

Dano said that the noun phrase sex and nervousness is a mode of discourse. In other words, the native speakers speak like that. But such mode of speaking needs some heed. So the Korean translator, as a speaker of English as a second language must prepare himself or herself for a sophisticated transformation. In brief, sex and nervousness doesn't have a separate entity, that is, not two independent nouns. The two words are an inseparably united concept. Figuratively speaking, the two words are like a married couple, not a single man and a woman standing at the same place. So the [섹스와 두려움] on the translated transcript was wrong.

The Korean version cannot explain the protagonist on the movie Anette Bening's question. The verb of the question should have been [are], but not [is]. (Sex and nervousness are my problem?) Then what's the relationship between sex and nervousness? It is the cause and effect relationship. In other words, in this case the noun sex is a cause and the abstract noun nervousness is the effect. Protagonist Michael Douglas thinks that she is nervous about sex because she might have had sex few and far between. He said "Your problem is nervousness about sex." As if thunderstruck, and as if to prove that she is not suffering from that kind of symptom, she goes toward the bathroom and comes before him naked. (cf bread and butter=>bread with butter; negotiation and compromise=>compromise through negotiations)