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Untranslatable & Indefinable Words

blessmycottonsocks said:
Curiously, French, with its comparatively small vocabulary, is lacking many words we take for granted in English.
There is no French word for shallow for example. You have to say "peu profound" (little deep). No word for sibling (frère et soeur). No specific word for ape (monkey and ape use the same word "singe", but to specify an ape, you have to say big monkey without tail - grand singe sans queue). Numbers are pretty weird too: in French French (not Belgian) there is no word for seventy. After sixty-eight and sixty-nine you have to say sixty-ten, sixty-eleven etc. up to sixty-nineteen, after which eighty is called four twenties.
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Oh, you forgot the 90s : Four twenties and ten, four twenties and eleven, four twenties and thirteen...
 
blessmycottonsocks said:
Curiously, French, with its comparatively small vocabulary, is lacking many words we take for granted in English.
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Breakfast has to be petit dejeuner (little dinner).

But I do like some of the very French words that don't seem to translate into English. Such as empêchement, some vague major problem or excuse that nobody can ask for any more details about. Or manquer which seems to mean a total absence of anything and everything.

And I think we should adopt the French word for computers.....ordinateur. It sounds so much better....
 
Ermintruder said:
Breakfast has to be petit dejeuner (little dinner).

But I do like some of the very French words that don't seem to translate into English. Such as empêchement, some vague major problem or excuse that nobody can ask for any more details about. Or manquer which seems to mean a total absence of anything and everything.

And I think we should adopt the French word for computers.....ordinateur. It sounds so much better....
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I think that was one of the mandated francophone words from the linguistic fascists of the Académie Française.
Their raîson d'être is to maintain the purity of the French language and so they could not abide the horror of internationally accepted words like computer, Walkman, video, email, weekend etc. polluting the mother tongue.
Hence we have clumsy terms like ordinateur, balladeur, magnétoscope, courriel and fin de semaine.

Needless to say, the French, particularly the younger generation (and definitely excluding my rather nationalist brother-in-law) find it rather more "cool" (a frequently used French term) to use the international term.

They tried to impose some made-up francophone term for Internet (réseau something) but it failed miserably.
 
blessmycottonsocks said:
Hence we have clumsy terms like ordinateur
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Ah, but my point is that the French word ordinateur is an example of a much-better word for 'computer' than that same noun in English.

Whilst early 'computers' indeed were just calculating devices (adding and subtracting small or even vast numeric quantities both quickly and accurately) this English-language naming of the devices focuses upon their legacy mechanistic foundations, rather than what they actually do in terms of modern outputs.

To me the word ordinateur feels like a more-appropriate term for 'computer' because it immediately suggests to me (perhaps wrongly?) the meaning: 'functional activities associated with the ranking / recording / accessing of information regarding ordnance, in ordered lists' .

I am aware that the English phrase "out of the ordinary" refers to the archaic original meaning of the word, which was in the sense of lists or catalogues/inventories. Also, there is a sense of cardinality/prioritisation/positioning via the selection of ordinates.

Whilst we now have many English synonyms for computer, such as tablet, laptop, PC, desktop or even phone, I've always felt the word itself fails. Even the equally-generalistic term 'processor' would've been a better label.

So although I am not always in favour of the Académie Française, in this case I do personally feel that the French word is probably a more-appropriate choice than the English one. (However: "gros porteur" for 'le jumbo-jet' is just plane crazy)
 
What amazes me is how the word Love is used to cover so many different feelings. The greeks had better ideas there too.
 
blessmycottonsocks said:
Curiously, French, with its comparatively small vocabulary, is lacking many words we take for granted in English.
There is no French word for shallow for example. You have to say "peu profond" (little deep). No word for sibling (frère et soeur). No specific word for ape (monkey and ape use the same word "singe", but to specify an ape, you have to say big monkey without tail - grand singe sans queue). Numbers are pretty weird too: in French French (not Belgian) there is no word for seventy. After sixty-eight and sixty-nine you have to say sixty-ten, sixty-eleven etc. up to sixty-nineteen, after which eighty is called four twenties.
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That is interesting. I had no idea. And I thought German numbers were unusual.
 
@Ermintruder, I resisted fiercely to "ordinateur", but now I feel so natural to use the word. Here we use the more affectionate form, "ordi" either at home or at work. But, see, imagine how many 1980s early electronic songs would have to be reshaped to accommodate the new word...

@blessmycottonsockets, it's true that French, well, no... maybe Parisians find "cool" (or, in Parisian vernacular, "cool-ah") to drop some names in English, but it doesn't consider the accent in the translation. A name like Charlie Parker would be spelled like "Charly Par Coeur"... One of the hardest things for me is to understand my co workers speaking English. How many times I was embarrassed to hear their spelling of "count" on a business meeting. I am looked as an ET for changing my accent in the middle of a sentence to spell correctly both languages, English and French. Being trilingual on the XXIth century is definitely not cool-ah...
 
chicorea said:
Here we use the more affectionate form, "ordi" either at home or at work
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Ah, ordi, c'est bien, très apprécié!

chicorea said:
I am looked as an ET for changing my accent in the middle of a sentence
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I say keep doing this. Incidently, in the UK it is now becoming very-unusual to hear anyone under the age of 50 using what were (what I shall call) French 'borrow-phrases'. Examples include:

raison d'être
cordon bleu / sanitair
billet doux
cause célèbre
au contraire
au fait
cri de couer
(The list is huge...)

But these have virtually disappeared from British English. My children would have difficulty in understanding any of these terms, and would never (ever) use them in speech or writing.

And this is because although these phrases were commonly-used in British English (in certain contexts, but widely) from say 1400CE or earlier, they have begun to die-out from the 1970s onwards. And that is simply because the world does not speak English as a universal language. It speaks American.
 
Ermintruder said:
Ah, but my point is that the French word ordinateur is an example of a much-better word for 'computer' than that same noun in English.

Whilst early 'computers' indeed were just calculating devices (adding and subtracting small or even vast numeric quantities both quickly and accurately) this English-language naming of the devices focuses upon their legacy mechanistic foundations, rather than what they actually do in terms of modern outputs.
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No, you're wrong. The earliest use of the word computer in English referred to humans who did calculations.

The term "computer", in use from the early 17th century (the first known written reference dates from 1613),[1] meant "one who computes": a person performing mathematical calculations, before electronic computers became commercially available. "The human computer is supposed to be following fixed rules; he has no authority to deviate from them in any detail."[2] Teams of people were frequently used to undertake long and often tedious calculations; the work was divided so that this could be done in parallel.


Since the end of the 20th century, the term "human computer" has also been applied to individuals with prodigious powers of mental arithmetic, also known as mental calculators.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_computer

Babbage's Analytical Engines were an attempt to automate this work, and thus eliminate human errors.
 
Ermintruder said:
It speaks American
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A further comment on this (and I base this from experience, having been in Canada myself)...many English-speaking Canadians slip south of the border, into the US. Some of them are stars, many are students, but they are motivated "makers and shakers". They do not bring any French language skills or traces with them (I exaggerate: but it is true).

I think North American English is perhaps specifically non-inclusive of French phrases, because of the Quebecois/Louisiana patois dimensions. Also....

I think that because American English has had to be uptaken by huge numbers of immigrants (E Pluribus Unum) to form a new nation it is the easiest/monosyllabic/un-nuanced varieties that have always been à la modê fashionable and therefore copied and codified.

If I were also to think a little too much into this...going back to 1812, British North America, the the ascedency of the United States on an international level (in tandem with the end of the British Empire): I strongly-believe that all British diplomats and ambassadors (up until almost the present day, and many politicians) have always spoken very-good formal French (this is also true of much of the British Royal Family).

Conversely, I suspect that this skill was much-rarer amongst United States diplomats and ambassadors (and perhaps almost-absent amongst it's politicians). It therefore perhaps became a badge of honour amongst United States representatives only to speak English.

Their English. What I term Universal Standard English = U.S.E. (or 'Murican, as they'd perhaps say)
 
rynner2 said:
No, you're wrong
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@rynner2 in my sentence "Whilst early 'computers' indeed were just calculating devices" I am indeed referring to the first machine versions, not the humans that clearly preceded them. I'm in no doubt that 'computer', as a word, once referred to a job function (cf the recent film Hidden Figures)

My original opinion, as stated, remains valid (in that the French word, not just in France), is arguably more descriptive of the current devices. The word 'computer' is too narrow- this is evidenced by the fact that it is almost always inferred in conversation (or within sales/marketing/support....).

Whilst this relative absence of the word is in part a function of their ubiquity is open to interpretation. I reckon we'd be as well calling them calculators than computers (for me in a rough sense, the letter "O" indicates shorthand that it is impersonal machine, cf excavator/elevator/transistor, whereas the letter "E" does embody the function as being human).
 
If we keep discussing the genesis of the computers in terms of what came first, the 0 or the 1, we will end discussing the Andikithera Mechanism. In Greek. What would make some sense, you know, boucler la boucle... Oh dear...
 
chicorea said:
If we keep discussing the genesis of the computers in terms of what came first, the 0 or the 1, we will end discussing the Antikithera Mechanism. In Greek. What would make some sense, you know, boucler la boucle... Oh dear...
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:p
 
Ermintruder said:
Ah, ordi, c'est bien, très apprécié!


I say keep doing this. Incidently, in the UK it is now becoming very-unusual to hear anyone under the age of 50 using what were (what I shall call) French 'borrow-phrases'. Examples include:

raison d'être
cordon bleu / sanitair
billet doux
cause célèbre
au contraire
au fait
cri de couer
(The list is huge...)

But these have virtually disappeared from British English. My children would have difficulty in understanding any of these terms, and would never (ever) use them in speech or writing.

And this is because although these phrases were commonly-used in British English (in certain contexts, but widely) from say 1400CE or earlier, they have begun to die-out from the 1970s onwards. And that is simply because the world does not speak English as a universal language. It speaks American.
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That's a real shame, I like to pepper my speech and writing with French phrases, because it makes me sound like a ponce. Er, I mean, because it's nice to sound sophisticated sometimes, and a lot of those sayings are very apt. Guess we'll have to retire plus ca change, because things are actually changing and not staying the same, linguistically anyway.
 
Ermintruder said:
Ah, ordi, c'est bien, très apprécié!


I say keep doing this. Incidently, in the UK it is now becoming very-unusual to hear anyone under the age of 50 using what were (what I shall call) French 'borrow-phrases'. Examples include:

raison d'être
cordon bleu / sanitair
billet doux
cause célèbre
au contraire
au fait
cri de couer
(The list is huge...)

But these have virtually disappeared from British English. My children would have difficulty in understanding any of these terms, and would never (ever) use them in speech or writing.
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Have to dispute this: it's all circles, innit?

Of your list of examples, I'd use the first and sixth without hesitation to educated peers.

Nonetheless, I'd certainly agree that there is a movement away from these phrases. I think that it's rooted in an anxiety about pronunciation. In days past, they would be spoken with a British accent, even by those educated enough to use the original pronunciation. Today, however, the tendency among those who can is to speak them as French, and many people are painfully aware that they can't manage this with any elegance--hence abstention.

I'm mostly of the 'A-jin-court' school of pronunciation and my French is lamentable to the point of embarrassment, but I do a positively batrachian plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.
 
Yithian said:
Nonetheless, I'd certainly agree that there is a movement away from these phrases
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I think you'd find (were this to be properly-researched, across the entire British Isles) that the demise of such 'borrow-phrases') is significantly more-advanced than you'd want to believe.

Whilst using such phrases (deliberately or instinctively) can be viewed as some form of class or education signifier (and therefore used or suppressed accordingly) I think you may be on to something with your hypothesis regarding squeamishness in pronounciation: especially when that's underpinned by an unwillingness to use Brit-mangled French (I suspect this has perhaps grown slowly ever since a certain W. Shakepeare put paper under his plume).

The original Franglaise phase as a tv & radio entertainment genre disappeared not long after the Black & White Minstrel Show. Fun Frangle started to slip below the horizon around the same time as it became beyond-passé to judiciously-pepper one's phrases with Latin epigrams (I might confess to missing all of those particular spices, but I run the risk of censure by having my license revoked).

One observation/theory I have (written here without prejudice or unintentional articulation) is that as Britain has become more multicultural in populations, it has become much-less linguistically diverse.

With the notable exception of Welsh in Wales (and in line with the abysmal farce that is neoGaelic in Scotland) I get the impression that the Brit English what she is spoke nowadays is being boiled-down from every possible direction into a réduction Américain. Or perhaps, ironically eh, a Canadian flan (at least our true colour will still shine through).

C'est la guerre....as my mother used to say (phonetically but fervently).
 
The reduced use of French phrases here probably owes a lot to one Dellboy Trotter, who frequently proved himself a right plonker by misusing them! Many people may have tried to avoid getting tarred with that brush by avoiding French expressions entirely.
 
Ermintruder said:
I think you'd find (were this to be properly-researched, across the entire British Isles) that the demise of such 'borrow-phrases') is significantly more-advanced than you'd want to believe.

Whilst using such phrases (deliberately or instinctively) can be viewed as some form of class or education signifier (and therefore used or suppressed accordingly) I think you may be on to something with your hypothesis regarding squeamishness in pronounciation: especially when that's underpinned by an unwillingness to use Brit-mangled French (I suspect this has perhaps grown slowly ever since a certain W. Shakepeare put paper under his plume).

The original Franglaise phase as a tv & radio entertainment genre disappeared not long after the Black & White Minstrel Show. Fun Frangle started to slip below the horizon around the same time as it became beyond-passé to judiciously-pepper one's phrases with Latin epigrams (I might confess to missing all of those particular spices, but I run the risk of censure by having my license revoked).

One observation/theory I have (written here without prejudice or unintentional articulation) is that as Britain has become more multicultural in populations, it has become much-less linguistically diverse.

With the notable exception of Welsh in Wales (and in line with the abysmal farce that is neoGaelic in Scotland) I get the impression that the Brit English what she is spoke nowadays is being boiled-down from every possible direction into a réduction Américain. Or perhaps, ironically eh, a Canadian flan (at least our true colour will still shine through).

C'est la guerre....as my mother used to say (phonetically but fervently).
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I'm an expat--atypical, I suppose.

You either lose your linguistic idiosyncracies completely or become a preposterous caricature of your background.

I'll let you guess which.
 
I must say I have never noticed this apparent lack of French phrasing! I did once hear a brilliant radio essay by a French woman living in the UK in which she very cleverly used just about every French expression commonly used (or so I thought?) here and I thought of it when this thread started.
 
Xanatic* said:
What amazes me is how the word Love is used to cover so many different feelings. The greeks had better ideas there too.
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Yes...ἀγάπη being a classic example of this
(ág-āpæ). This one was sermoned at me from the pulpit a number of times. I would've preferred it expounded on a chalk-board
 
Ermintruder said:
Did she explain what French is for cul-de-sac?
Because allegedly that's not a term commonly-used in mainland France. Anyone for ruelle bloqué?
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Oh I don't remember. I bet there are other examples of this though.

I do know one case of de-frenchification now I come to think of it. My husband never says c'est la vie - he always says "as the French say -that's life". He is being humorous though so it doesn't count. :D
 
Ermintruder said:
Did she explain what French is for cul-de-sac?
Because allegedly that's not a term commonly-used in mainland France. Anyone for ruelle bloqué?
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Rue barré is the object of a delightful jeu de mots in one of the novels of the Yellow King.

A cul de sac is, literally a bottom of a bag, meaning something without an exit. Today french prefers to use impasse.
 
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