Naked Translations

Blizzard

April 7, 2008

Snowmen on Brighton beach, 6 April 2008

A modern word, probably more or less onomatopœic; suggestive words are blow, blast, blister, bluster. The French blesser, to wound, has also been conjectured, but there is nothing to indicate a French origin. As applied to a "snow spell", the word became general in the American newspapers during the severe winter of 1880-81; but according the the Milwaukee Republica 4 March 1881, it had been applied in the Northern Vindicator (Estherville, Iowa) between 1860 and 1870.
Oxford English Dictionary

The end of the line for the semicolon?

April 4, 2008

The semicolon is facing grave danger.

Let's save it! Unfortunately I have no time to explain why we should, as I'm fighting with boxes and work in equal measure. I'd still like to hear what you think.

Boycott

March 19, 2008

The word boycott is being used quite a lot at the moment following the events in Tibet and China. Its origin is very interesting:

Charles C. Boycott seems to have become a household word because of his strong sense of duty to his employer. An Englishman and former British soldier, Boycott was the estate agent of the Earl of Erne in County Mayo, Ireland. The earl was one of the absentee landowners who as a group held most of the land in Ireland. Boycott was chosen in the fall of 1880 to be the test case for a new policy advocated by Charles Parnell, an Irish politician who wanted land reform. Any landlord who would not charge lower rents or any tenant who took over the farm of an evicted tenant would be given the complete cold shoulder by Parnell's supporters. Boycott refused to charge lower rents and ejected his tenants. At this point members of Parnell's Irish Land League stepped in, and Boycott and his family found themselves isolated—without servants, farmhands, service in stores, or mail delivery. Boycott's name was quickly adopted as the term for this treatment, not just in English but in other languages such as French, Dutch, German, and Russian.
(American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language)

Now I've seen it all

March 14, 2008

I had heard about it, rarely, admittedly, but it had been mentioned in a couple of translators’ forums. A colleague even told me about it once, but I wouldn’t believe him (he has a tendency to embellish the truth). Then it happened to me. Check it out for yourself:

Dear Céline
Attached is the Powerpoint presentation for translation into French as discussed. No rush, no deadline, just at your leisure.
Kind regards
S.

A Job Without A Deadline.

I might retire now.

Sommelier and refulgent

March 12, 2008

Eva looked about her at the other clients: the businessmen, the lawyers, the politicians, she supposed – eating, smoking, drinking, talking – and at the elderly waiters bustling importantly to and fro with the orders and she realised she was the only woman in the room. It was a Wednesday: perhaps Belgian women didn’t go out to eat until the weekend, she suggested to Morris – who was summoning the sommelier.
“Who knows? But your refulgent femininity more than compensates for the preponderance of males, my dear.”

Restless by William Boyd, paperback edition, p. 74.

Two words interested me in this passage: "sommelier", because I’ve always wondered why it doesn’t appear to bear any etymological relation to wine, and "refulgent", because I’d never come across it before.

Sommelier
A restaurant employee who orders and maintains the wines sold in the restaurant and usually has extensive knowledge about wine and food pairings.
From Old French, officer in charge of provisions, pack-animal driver, alteration of sommerier, beast of burden driver, from sommier, beast of burden.
Interesting, isn’t it?

Refulgent
Shining brightly; radiant.
Origin: 1500–10; < L refulgere to radiate light.

Compared with

March 6, 2008

How do you translate compared with in French? You have several options, but beware of the loan translation!

The past participle of the verb to compare can be used as an adjective at the beginning of a sentence. It creates a comparison between the noun that follows and the subject of the main proposition, with which it agrees, as it refers to it.

Exemples :
- Comparée à l'érable, l'épinette donne un bois de piètre qualité.
- Comparés à ma fille, qui n'a reçu aucune formation musicale, les enfants de ma sœur, qui jouent tous d'un instrument, réussissent mieux en mathématiques.

However, the adverbial (and invariable) use of the past participle comparé à or avec is a calque (loan translation) of compared to or with and must be avoided. Comparativement à, en comparaison avec, par comparaison avec, si on compare avec are to be preferred.

Examples:
- Comparé au dernier recensement, les allophones sont plus nombreux à Montréal.
- Je m'en suis bien sortie comparé à la première fois.
- Comparé à la dernière saison, ces oranges sont beaucoup moins juteuses.

The following are to be preferred:
- En comparaison avec le dernier recensement, les allophones sont plus nombreux à Montréal.
- Je m'en suis bien sortie si je compare avec la première fois.
- Comparativement à la dernière saison, ces oranges sont beaucoup moins juteuses.

The verb comparer can be used with à or avec: comparer une chose à une autre or comparer une chose avec une autre.

Banque de dépannage linguistique