By Dougal Campbell, French language tutor at Glasgow University, freelance translator and contributor to Harrap French titles

More for the catechism of cliché

Yet another instance of journalistic variations on "un train peut en cacher un autre" (or "rebelote", if you like), this morning (15 July) on France Info, with "une fuite radioactive peut-elle en cacher une autre?" (For more on the subject see the May 08 column).

It was accompanied by a liaison from "cacher" with the following vowel, since the newsreader was on his best behaviour. A quick swoop into the archives of Libération produced several other variations on this template: "un recensement/un phénomène peut en cacher un autre", and a mention for a book entitled Une Ville peut en cacher une autre. The notion of hidden dangers, of masked problems, of underlying risks, of the "other side" of a phenomenon, of more going on than meets the eye, even of something being "the thin end of the wedge"; all of these may well be conveyed by the "un ––– peut en cacher un autre", a useful and versatile little cliché.

Chose promise

As mentioned last month, points gleaned from the two translations of The Great Gatsby. One, by Victor Liona, dates from 1946, and there is a more recent one from 1996 by Jacques Tournier. What is the single most immediately striking difference between these two translations, fifty years apart? The precious and literary tone struck by the use of the imperfect subjunctive in the 1946 one, which creates what Claude Duneton called "l’effet marquise", creating a gulf between the original English and the translation.

Three pages in, and "The practical thing was to find rooms in the city" comes over as perfectly natural English which could be spoken. Then compare "Le bon sens aurait voulu que je cherchasse un logement à New York" and "La sagesse voulait que je prenne une chambre en ville". Or prepare to be stopped in your tracks by the difference between the translations of "so when a young man in the office suggested that we take a house together in a commuting town", just two lines further on. In 1946, "Aussi, lorsqu’un de mes jeunes camarades de bureau suggéra que nous prissions ensemble une maison dans la banlieue", but fifty years later we read "Aussi, quand l’un des collègues de l’agence m’a proposé de partager avec lui une maison, dans un village de la périphérie...".
We can see that Queneau was right when he said that the imperfect subjunctive was dead, "tué par le ridicule et l’Almanach Vermot", as he put it in 1955. By "l’Almanach Vermot", he meant ancient and usually vulgar jokes, puns and mockery, usually based on gags involving "susse" and "suce", in my experience of tired old puns.

There is a great deal to be learned by comparing these two translations, and I see there is yet another one from 1991 which I don’t yet own. The "cherchasse" and "prissions" may have seemed elegant and literary in 1946; they appear stilted and archaic now, whereas the original English seems not at all precious. Expect more from these two translations in future columns. Faïza Guène and the translation of her newest book will have to wait until next month, too much to say...

Le feuilleton de l’été?

It is no doubt too early to say what this summer’s media running gag will be, but early indications point to the burglaries of Ségolène Royal’s house and her accusations aimed at "le clan Sarkozy" being a possibility for the media "soap" of the summer. Libération was immediately mocking, with a headline of "Micmac autour d’un fric-frac" on 28 June, followed by an even more mocking front-page headline of "La gaffitude" on 10 July, mentioning "des accusations que rien ne vient étayer". What are they mocking here? Her apparent tendency to make blunders, and the attendant fuss surrounding the break-in, but all deliberately couched in language which is colloquial or neologistic. Surprisingly confident scepticism and open mockery are combined on that front page, along with an echo of her involuntary neologism of "bravitude" (see Feb. 2007 column). The vogue for neologisms ending in -itude simply won’t go away; I heard "la grévitude" a couple of weeks ago on France Inter, in connection with Sarkozy’s comment that there had been strikes which no one had in fact noticed, and "la grèvitude" was used by a journalist to describe and mock the supposed French attachment to going on strike.

Vous avez dit néologismes?

Talking of neologisms, here’s one, long since in the Robert (first appearance dated as 1990), seen again in Le Monde on 5 July, in "ce mode de transport polluant, accidentogène, qu'il faut gérer" to describe motorbikes. Clearly modeled on "cancérigène/cancérogène" (the latter being the officially recommended form), meaning "carcinogenic". However, do we have a single adjective in English (other than "dangerous") for "likely to cause accidents" or "where lots of accidents happen"? You will see and hear "carrefour accidentogène", whereas in English we might go for "dangerous" or "deadly" in that kind of context.

Bears and chickens

Although the French for "a bear market" appears to be just "un marché baissier" or "un marché à la baisse", there is a curious link with a French idiom here. Thanks to a link from the Guardian newsletter to a Seattle Times article, I have learned the origin of the term "bear market": "the term, by the way, is believed to come from ‘bearskin jobbers’ – 17^th and 18^th century traders in London who would sell bearskins before the bears had been caught, hoping they could buy the skins more cheaply by the time they had to deliver them. Hence, a ‘bear’ became someone betting that prices will go lower."
seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/businesstechnology/2008035124_terms06.html

Now, the curious thing here is the startling similarity with "vendre la peau de l’ours avant de l’avoir tué", usually translated as "to count your chickens before they’re hatched", but where the French expression includes the notion of profiting financially from the situation, and reminds us of the origin of "bear market".

Des sites qui valent le déplacement

Finally, for those interested in subtitling and dubbing, you will find many fascinating things at www.lagazettedudoublage.com and www.objectif-cinema.com

Please contact the author with any comments and similar amuse-gueule snippets of French, at D.Campbell@french.arts.gla.ac.uk

Copyright Chambers Harrap Publishers Ltd 2008
Chambers Harrap is part of the Hodder Education Group and is a Hachette Livre UK company