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Discussion Groups / English Usage / June 2007"Il l'a emportée si mplement"?
I've been trying to understand some of the French phrases that Hercule Poirot uses in Agatha Christie novels. In most cases I can understand from the context what he's probably saying, and I can usually get what I think is an idiomatic translation with the help of a dictionary. Sometimes, though, I'm unable to make sense of one of the phrases. One example is Il l'a emportée simplement Literally, this seems to say "He has carried it away simply", but that's not much help. It appears in _The Murder on the Links_ (on page 8 in my copy). The context is a discussion of the effects of seasickness on different people. A wife being discussed has a horror of the sea and seasickness, while her husband is little affected. The paragraph in which the phrase in question appears is "Fortunately her husband was _homme pratique_. He was also very calm, the crises of the nerves, they affected him not. _Il l'a emportée simplement!_ Naturally, when she reached England she was prostrate, but she still breathed." The juxtaposition of "they affected him not" with "_Il l'a emportée simplement_" suggests that they are meant to be translations of each other, but it's not at all clear to me how they would be. Would anyone care to help? exw6sxq@earthlink.net had it ... > "Fortunately her husband was _homme pratique_. > He was also very calm, the crises of the nerves, [quoted text clipped - 8 lines] > > Would anyone care to help? An educated guess: - He carried it off easily. That is, the horrors of the sea did not bother him.  SignatureDavid ===== the Omrud a écrit : > exw6sxq@earthlink.net had it ... > [quoted text clipped - 16 lines] > > That is, the horrors of the sea did not bother him. Nan it cannot be the horrors of the sea, it would be "emportées", and it doenst make sens to me. Bob Cunningham a écrit : > I've been trying to understand some of the French phrases > that Hercule Poirot uses in Agatha Christie novels. In most [quoted text clipped - 29 lines] > > Would anyone care to help? "he just took her away!" Il l'a emportée simplement! => emportéE => about a girl or a femal thing. quentinantonin@free.fr had it ... > Bob Cunningham a écrit : > [quoted text clipped - 13 lines] > "he just took her away!" > Il l'a emportée simplement! => emportéE => about a girl or a femal thing. That worried me as well, but I couldn't find a direct object to attach to the pronoun, never mind whether masculine or feminine. But does the context allow for the husband carrying the wife? Did Agatha Christie speak good French? SignatureDavid ===== > Did Agatha Christie speak good French? /Belgian/ SignatureDerek Turner. No Microsoft products were harmed (or even used) in the production of this message. frderek@cesmail.net had it ... > > Did Agatha Christie speak good French? > > /Belgian/ Golly, I'm not familiar with a language called "Belgian". Can you provide any examples of it? SignatureDavid ===== > frderek@cesmail.net had it ... > [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] > Golly, I'm not familiar with a language called "Belgian". Can you > provide any examples of it? Every time he was accused of being French Poirot corrected the speaker. Sorry, I should have put a smiley. Do the Walloons speak pure French (if such a thing exists) or a dialect? SignatureDerek Turner. No Microsoft products were harmed (or even used) in the production of this message. frderek@cesmail.net had it ... > > frderek@cesmail.net had it ... > > [quoted text clipped - 6 lines] > Every time he was accused of being French Poirot corrected the speaker. > Sorry, I should have put a smiley. I know, sorry. I was a little abrupt because I thought you were suggesting that I didn't know that Poirot was Belgian. This is now so well known that I would be surprised if anybody thinks he was. > Do the Walloons speak pure French (if such a thing exists) or a dialect? From my viewpoint as a non-native in the French world, the Belgians have an accent but apart from a few dialect words, the language seems to be standard French. The French in the SW (where we have a home) seems to be more distant from Parisian French, because of the influence of the langue d'Oc. SignatureDavid ===== Derek Turner a écrit : >> frderek@cesmail.net had it ... >> [quoted text clipped - 7 lines] > Sorry, I should have put a smiley. Do the Walloons speak pure French (if > such a thing exists) or a dialect? They speak the same French, some words are differente, we say " un portable" and they say " un GSM" or to say '90' they say soemthing strange in stead of "90". quentinantonin@free.fr had it ... > Derek Turner a écrit : > >> frderek@cesmail.net had it ... [quoted text clipped - 12 lines] > portable" and they say " un GSM" or to say '90' they say soemthing > strange in stead of "90". "Nonante". It threw me the first time I heard it - I had bought three ice creams at 30 Belgian Francs each. SignatureDavid ===== > quentinantonin@free.fr had it ... > [quoted text clipped - 19 lines] > "Nonante". It threw me the first time I heard it - I had bought > three ice creams at 30 Belgian Francs each. Personally, I'm much happier with the Belgian/Swiss septante and nonante (is the Swiss who also use huitante or octante?), but I had my French teacher in fits when I returned from Belgium and kept saying "à tantôt" for "see you" (à bientôt). There is also "un établissement" for a restaurant/bar. SignatureRob Bannister >> quentinantonin@free.fr had it ... >> [quoted text clipped - 25 lines] > for "see you" (à bientôt). There is also "un établissement" for a > restaurant/bar. Well, if you find Belgian French confusing, you can always try answering them in Dutch. French-speaking Belgians love that. SignatureRoland Hutchinson Will play viola da gamba for food. NB mail to my.spamtrap [at] verizon.net is heavily filtered to remove spam. If your message looks like spam I may not see it. <465975a1$0$29072$426a74cc@news.free.fr>, Quentin : > They speak the same French, some words are differente, we say " un > portable" and they say " un GSM" or to say '90' they say soemthing > strange in stead of "90". It's nonante for 90, septante for 70. > <465975a1$0$29072$426a7...@news.free.fr>, Quentin : > [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] > > It's nonante for 90, septante for 70. And, as someone asked about it a bit before, it it in switzerland that they say octante for 80 as well as septante and nonante. I just wanted to add a few words about "Belgian" as a language. While it's true the belgian french is for the most part the same as french, there are some peculiarities called "belgicisms" that the French consider to be errors of grammar or vocabulary, but that are currently said or used in texts in Belgium. It is a bit the same as the differences between french and french canadian. As for the word "kot" it is in fact derived from the dialect of brussels (which is, i agree, based on a mixture of dutch, german, french and some other languages) and it meant the place where chicken live (le kot à poules) in small pens (is that the right word in english? I'm not sure anymore). Anyway the dialects in Belgium differ from town to town(the Walloon from Liège isn't the same as in the Ardennes) so it is difficult to explain to foreigners about our dialects. For instance, there are two kinds of "brusseleer" in brussels, the one which is mostly inspired by dutch (but still has some french in it too) and the one that is more french like (but still has dutch in it) lol so yeah, it's easy to get confused. > As for the word "kot" it is in fact derived from the dialect of > brussels (which is, i agree, based on a mixture of dutch, german, > french and some other languages) and it meant the place where chicken > live (le kot à poules) in small pens (is that the right word in > english? I'm not sure anymore). Chickens live in Coops. SignatureSalvatore Volatile Salvatore Volatile wrote, in <f3ejep$9fa$1@chessie.cirr.com> on Mon, 28 May 2007 12:54:49 +0000 (UTC): > > As for the word "kot" it is in fact derived from the dialect of > > brussels (which is, i agree, based on a mixture of dutch, german, [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] > > Chickens live in Coops. A coop is their house but the enclosure they have access to could be called a pen or a run. SignatureNick Spalding >Salvatore Volatile wrote, in <f3ejep$9fa$1@chessie.cirr.com> > on Mon, 28 May 2007 12:54:49 +0000 (UTC): [quoted text clipped - 9 lines] >A coop is their house but the enclosure they have access to could be >called a pen or a run. English doves and, naturally, sheep may be kept in cotes. I once lived by a town that had a Sheepcote Lane. The mezzanine floor of a cote is called the entrecote. SignaturePaul In bocca al Lupo! > English doves and, naturally, sheep may be kept in cotes. I once lived > by a town that had a Sheepcote Lane. The mezzanine floor of a cote is > called the entrecote. I grew up believing the "cote" was noun that also meant a group of sheep, or whatever, mainly due to "The Music Man" wherein Mayor Shinn accuses the School Board of standing (actionless) "like a cote of Shropshire sheep." I have learned today that "cote" only refers to a small shelter for domestic animals. I am not, however, gullible enough to believe that anybody is going to build a domestic-animal shelter with multiple floors, including an intermediate level. 'Entrecote' means 'between the ribs' and refers to a steak cut from the rib section of beef, specifically between the ninth and eleventh ribs. njg >> English doves and, naturally, sheep may be kept in cotes. I once >> lived by a town that had a Sheepcote Lane. The mezzanine floor of a [quoted text clipped - 9 lines] > means 'between the ribs' and refers to a steak cut from the rib > section of beef, specifically between the ninth and eleventh ribs. Oh, dear! Hardened by years of Usenet. Just look at some of the marvellous surviving medieval dovecotes. Standards were very different in those days: for a peasant family it would have seemed luxuriously cosy to have sheep on the ground floor, pigeons on the surcoate, people on the entrecote in between. Here are a couple chosen at random (note that the interior view shows one which has lost most of its original woodwork, but the central ladder is still present). http://tinyurl.com/34fxyb or http://images.google.co.uk/imgres?imgurl=http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/sci/moac/ currentstudents/peter_cock/photos/kinwarton_dovecote/another_dovecote.jpg&imgref url=http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/sci/moac/currentstudents/peter_cock/photos/kin warton_dovecote/&h=410&w=325&sz=53&hl=en&start=17&tbnid=XkkE3Xt6QERiqM:&tbnh=125 &tbnw=99&prev=/images%3Fq%3Ddovecote%26gbv%3D2%26svnum%3D10%26hl%3Den%26ie%3DUTF -8%26oe%3DISO-8859-1%26sa%3DG SignatureMike. -- Posted via a free Usenet account from http://www.teranews.com On May 29, 4:02 am, "Mike Lyle" <mike_lyle...@REMOVETHISyahoo.co.uk> wrote: > Oh, dear! Hardened by years of Usenet. Just look at some of the > marvellous surviving medieval dovecotes. Standards were very different [quoted text clipped - 6 lines] > http://tinyurl.com/34fxyb > orhttp://images.google.co.uk/imgres?imgurl=http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fa... Actually, they are of the same place. No mention of a formerly existing mezzanine, and googling "dovecote mezzanine" only turns up conversions where the mezzanine is a recent added feature. > On May 29, 4:02 am, "Mike Lyle" <mike_lyle...@REMOVETHISyahoo.co.uk> > wrote: [quoted text clipped - 9 lines] >> >> http://tinyurl.com/34fxyb orhttp://images.google.co.uk/imgres?imgurl=http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fa. .. > Actually, they are of the same place. No mention of a formerly > existing mezzanine, and googling "dovecote mezzanine" only turns up > conversions where the mezzanine is a recent added feature. No, two separate dovecotes: I don't think you scrolled down to the second example. The second one, of rectangular plan, is rather later in date, and the interior is better preserved, though unfortunately not illustrated on the website. It's unusual in having _two_ entrecotes, originally accommodating two families. There's a rather sad story about it. The parish records show that one of these floors was still lived in by an old "shepherd" (actually a poacher) and his wife, with their chickens, until as recently as 1963, when a well-meaning Council declared it unfit for habitation and forced the couple, then already in their seventies, to move to a prefabricated asbestos bungalow on the other side of the village. Their health rapidly deteriorated under the influence of unaccustomed central heating and the damp atmosphere caused by indoor plumbing, and both were dead within a year. SignatureMike. -- Posted via a free Usenet account from http://www.teranews.com >> On May 29, 4:02 am, "Mike Lyle" <mike_lyle...@REMOVETHISyahoo.co.uk> >> wrote: [quoted text clipped - 30 lines] >influence of unaccustomed central heating and the damp atmosphere caused >by indoor plumbing, and both were dead within a year. Any forced relocation of old people is likely to be accompanied by a high mortality rate. It is well known in the care home industry that if a home is forced to close, most of the relocated residents will soon die. SignatureMike Page Who has a space after the two dashes in his sig. separator, honest. >Any forced relocation of old people is likely to be accompanied >by a high mortality rate. It is well known in the care home >industry that if a home is forced to close, most of the relocated >residents will soon die. If they are old people in a care home, wouldn't most of them soon die if not moved? SignatureTony Cooper Orlando, FL >>Any forced relocation of old people is likely to be accompanied >>by a high mortality rate. It is well known in the care home [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] >If they are old people in a care home, wouldn't most of them soon die >if not moved? But not as soon. SignaturePeter Duncanson, UK (in alt.usage.english) >>>Any forced relocation of old people is likely to be accompanied >>>by a high mortality rate. It is well known in the care home [quoted text clipped - 5 lines] > >But not as soon. A bit hard to measure, wouldn't you think? Can't very well test out the theory. SignatureTony Cooper Orlando, FL >>>If they are old people in a care home, wouldn't most of them soon die >>>if not moved? [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] >A bit hard to measure, wouldn't you think? Can't very well test out >the theory. There are ethical barriers to a controlled experiment. To requote Mike Page: Any forced relocation of old people is likely to be accompanied by a high mortality rate. It is well known in the care home industry that if a home is forced to close, most of the relocated residents will soon die. That is a matter of observation and experience. SignaturePeter Duncanson, UK (in alt.usage.english) >> Any forced relocation of old people is likely to be accompanied >> by a high mortality rate. It is well known in the care home [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] > If they are old people in a care home, wouldn't most of them soon die > if not moved? I think the stats are a bit more sophisticated than that! Meanwhile, here's a long-winded illustrated account of one of the "prefab estates" hastily thrown together after the War. http://www.localhistory.scit.wlv.ac.uk/interesting/prefabs/prefabs.htm There are actually still some of them here in Cheltenham, and they look pretty cosy to me, some fifty years after their intended replacement. The surroundings of the Wolverhampton ones seem to be very bleak: in Chelt, the inhabitants have planted nice gardens and done all the usual home-making stuff. Maybe the Wolves think that's for softies. SignatureMike. -- Posted via a free Usenet account from http://www.teranews.com >>> Any forced relocation of old people is likely to be accompanied >>> by a high mortality rate. It is well known in the care home [quoted text clipped - 5 lines] > >I think the stats are a bit more sophisticated than that! I'm in full agreement that moving elderly people in this type of situation can cause health problems that can lead to their death. Stress can be a killer, and the move could cause stress. Then, there's that indefinable thing we call "the will to live". I think there are situations that can cause a person to just let go of that will. I'm in mild objection to "most", though. "Most" - in fact, all - *will* die at some point, but "soon"(used here to mean "sooner than would otherwise be expected) is just not provable by any stats. The "forced to close" phrase makes be a bit unsure of my position. In the US, if a care home is forced to close it is usually because the home has not met standards of care or condition. That probably would mean the residents have been pre-weakend by the conditions, so it wouldn't be the closing and relocation that was the direct cause of earlier-than-expected death. We don't have care homes run by a local government agency where the forced closing would be caused by local budgeting. We don't have situations where Maude is moved to some distant town from Snive On Marsh where she can look out the window and see the churchyard where her husband is buried. We don't have situations here where Maude's old friends can walk down the lane to pop in on her. Here, Maude's care home looks like a motel and faces a Home Depot and a Wal-Mart. If that home closes, Maude will be moved to another motel-like facility that faces out on a Target and a Dunkin' Donuts. The new facility just means a different driving route for any visitors and possibly a new Recreational Activities Director who mumbles when she calls out the Bingo numbers. SignatureTony Cooper Orlando, FL >I'm in full agreement that moving elderly people in this type of >situation can cause health problems that can lead to their death. [quoted text clipped - 13 lines] >wouldn't be the closing and relocation that was the direct cause of >earlier-than-expected death. A privately run care home near me was forced to close. Circumstances applied the force. It was owned and run by a couple of people who through aging were unable to continue with the management of the home. They could not afford to employ someone else to do it. They made considerable efforts to sell the business as a going concern. No one was interested. They had to close the home. The residents moved elsewhere. (I have no information about the effect of the move on the residents.) It was not a large place. The building was formerly the vicarage for the adjacent church. SignaturePeter Duncanson, UK (in alt.usage.english) >>The "forced to close" phrase makes be a bit unsure of my position. In >>the US, if a care home is forced to close it is usually because the [quoted text clipped - 13 lines] >elsewhere. (I have no information about the effect of the move on >the residents.) That's not what I think of when I read "forced to close". Yes, the couple was forced by their own circumstances to close the business. Still, "forced to close" carries a strong connotation of the business being closed by some outside factor like losing their license to stay open. SignatureTony Cooper Orlando, FL >>>The "forced to close" phrase makes be a bit unsure of my position. In >>>the US, if a care home is forced to close it is usually because the [quoted text clipped - 19 lines] >being closed by some outside factor like losing their license to stay >open. That may indeed be a more common cause of closure. SignaturePeter Duncanson, UK (in alt.usage.english) >>>>The "forced to close" phrase makes be a bit unsure of my position. In >>>>the US, if a care home is forced to close it is usually because the [quoted text clipped - 21 lines] > >That may indeed be a more common cause of closure. Tagging in at the end of the conversation, I did some consulting for the local (Hampshire) care home association, the work was indirectly funded by central government. I modelled the statistics provided by a hundred or so members of the association and discovered one of the reasons why the government had failed to get to grips with the funding of old people's care was that they had an inappropriate model of the way deaths are distributed. At the time I did the work, the reasons care homes would be forced to close were most commonly insolvency and failure to find a buyer when the owners themselves wished to retire. More recently, as I predicted in my report, the value of property has risen so much it is often profitable to close the home and redevelop it as flats. Standards of care were not often an issue - although there was a story of the local Allied Irish Bank manager who inspected a home and then said to the owner, 'I wouldn't put a rat in here', and foreclosed on the mortgage even tho' the home was solvent. I didn't have sufficient statistics on the home moves to prove the point about excess deaths in residents forced to move, but it was well known among the care home owners, who, on the whole, were a compassionate lot, even tho' some of them did very nicely for themselves out of the business. SignatureMike Page Who has a space after the two dashes in his sig. separator, honest. >the care home owners, who, on the whole, >were a compassionate lot, even tho' some of them did very nicely >for themselves out of the business. Maybe twenty years ago I went, as usual, for lunch in a particlar bar in Belfast. A few of my regular companions were untypically keen to introduce me to a man I'd never seen before. I recognised his surname immediately. His name used to be prominently advertised as that of a vehicle exhaust fitting business. He had closed that business and had moved on to owning and running a care home. It was the constrast between the two businesses that amused my friends. SignaturePeter Duncanson, UK (in alt.usage.english) > >Salvatore Volatile wrote, in <f3ejep$9f...@chessie.cirr.com> > > on Mon, 28 May 2007 12:54:49 +0000 (UTC): [quoted text clipped - 16 lines] > Paul > In bocca al Lupo! Well there you go : cote and kot must have derivated from a similar word > Well there you go : cote and kot must have derivated from a similar > word the etymology of coterie says "cote" os Old French for cottage [French, from Old French, peasant association, from cotier, cottager, from *cote, cottage, possibly of Germanic origin.] Buckwheat Soba? daniel mcgrath SignatureDaniel Gerard McGrath, a/k/a "Govende": for e-mail replace "invalid" with "com" Developmentally disabled; has Autism (Pervasive Developmental Disorder), Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, & periodic bouts of depression. [This signature is under construction.] > They [Belgians] speak the same French, some words are differente, > we say " un portable" and they say " un GSM" or to say '90' they > say soemthing strange in stead of "90". No, they say "90" instead of something strange. :-) SignatureMark Brader "Relax -- I know the procedures backwards." Toronto "Yeah, well, that's a quick way to get killed." msb@vex.net -- Chris Boucher, STAR COPS > Derek Turner a écrit : >> Every time he was accused of being French Poirot corrected the >> speaker. He was, of course, referring to his nationality rather than to his language. It's the same sort of touchiness as if someone called an Australian "English". >> Sorry, I should have put a smiley. Do the Walloons speak pure >> French (if such a thing exists) or a dialect? Wallon is a dialect of French, but many (perhaps most) of the Belgians you'll meet don't speak it. "Belgian French" is much closer to French French than Wallon is, although all three are pretty close. > They speak the same French, some words are differente, we say " un > portable" and they say " un GSM" or to say '90' they say soemthing > strange in stead of "90". That's true. The Belgians say "90" while the French say "4-20-10". One thing that's always puzzled me is that "Bruxelles" is pronounced differently in France and in Belgium. A small number of Dutch words have snuck into Belgian French, but for now the only one I can think of is "un kot" for something like a student lodging. SignaturePeter Moylan http://www.pmoylan.org Please note the changed e-mail and web addresses. The domain eepjm.newcastle.edu.au no longer exists, and I can no longer receive mail at my newcastle.edu.au addresses. The optusnet address could disappear at any time. the Omrud a écrit : > quentinantonin@free.fr had it ... > [quoted text clipped - 20 lines] > > Did Agatha Christie speak good French? Hum I dunno :S This is correct but I still dont get what it means.... I'm prettu sur it is about his wife. > the Omrud a écrit : > [quoted text clipped - 27 lines] > Hum I dunno :S This is correct but I still dont get what it means.... > I'm prettu sur it is about his wife. My first thought was "emporter la victoire", but a) I'm not sure whether this is a real French phrase and b) it wouldn't make sense here. SignatureRob Bannister Robert Bannister a écrit : [...] > My first thought was "emporter la victoire", but a) I'm not sure whether > this is a real French phrase "Emporter la victoire" certainly makes sense in French. > and b) it wouldn't make sense here. Probably not here though. SignatureIsabelle Cecchini > quentinantonin@free.fr had it ... (Thank you both for prompt responses.) > > Bob Cunningham a écrit : > > [quoted text clipped - 17 lines] > attach to the pronoun, never mind whether masculine or feminine. But > does the context allow for the husband carrying the wife? The complete conjugation of "emporter" is at http://www.wordreference.com/conj/FRverbs.asp?v=emporter . I don't see any "-ée" ending anywhere, and I see no indication that a participle is declined for gender. See a couple of entries where they give the conjugation for "il, elle, on a emporté" and "ils, elles ont emporté". Am I missing something? > Did Agatha Christie speak good French? I don't know the answer to that except to say that it seems to be an appropriate question. There are typos that indicate that the typesetter may not have known what the French was saying. At one point there is "violá" where "voilá" seems to be intended. I don't find "violá" in my French dictionary. I should think that if Dame Agatha wasn't confident of her own French, she would have had ready access to friends or associates who would review Poirot's French utterances for idiomaticity and grammaticality. exw6sxq@earthlink.net had it ... > > quentinantonin@free.fr had it ... > > [quoted text clipped - 12 lines] > elle, on a emporté" and "ils, elles ont emporté". Am I > missing something? Yes; as we often tell non-English speakers, the rule is correct but incomplete. Where a past tense verb takes a direct object which precedes the verb (this is usually a pronoun), the past participle is required to agree with the object. PDO - Preceding Direct Object. - J'ai emporté la femme. - Je l'ai emportée. SignatureDavid ===== > exw6sxq@earthlink.net had it ... > [quoted text clipped - 24 lines] > - J'ai emporté la femme. > - Je l'ai emportée. Thank you. [snip re:] > > > > "Fortunately her husband was _homme pratique_. > > > > He was also very calm, the crises of the nerves, > > > > they affected him not. _Il l'a emportée simplement!_ > > > > Naturally, when she reached England she was > > > > prostrate, but she still breathed." > The complete conjugation of "emporter" is at > http://www.wordreference.com/conj/FRverbs.asp?v=emporter . [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] > elle, on a emporté" and "ils, elles ont emporté". Am I > missing something? There's a special rule about making the participle agree with the direct object when it appears in-between like that. I had six years of French in junior high and high school, and as far as I know we never got around to that rule; I remember discussing it once here, with sentences like "He killed her" (Il l'a tuée). You don't put on the feminine E if the direct object came afterwards. "He killed his sister" (Il a tué sa soeur). SignatureBest -- Donna Richoux > [snip re:] > [quoted text clipped - 19 lines] > direct object came afterwards. "He killed his sister" (Il a tué sa > soeur). The interesting part is that many French people, who are poor at spelling, get this rule wrong, but when the extra -e changes the pronunciation (eg Il l'a prise), they always get it right. SignatureRob Bannister > quentinantonin@free.fr had it ... > [quoted text clipped - 17 lines] > attach to the pronoun, never mind whether masculine or feminine. But > does the context allow for the husband carrying the wife? The direct object is the third letter of the sentence. (Sorry; on re-reading this I see that you had already noticed the pronoun.) From the context we have, the wife is the most likely object. Still, a bit more context would help. > Did Agatha Christie speak good French? That, of course, is the crucial question. I imagine that any educated Englishwoman of her time would be expected to have a reasonable fluency in French. SignaturePeter Moylan http://www.pmoylan.org Please note the changed e-mail and web addresses. The domain eepjm.newcastle.edu.au no longer exists, and I can no longer receive mail at my newcastle.edu.au addresses. The optusnet address could disappear at any time. > > quentinantonin@free.fr had it ... > > [quoted text clipped - 28 lines] > Englishwoman of her time would be expected to have a reasonable fluency > in French. At http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agatha_Christie it says, in part, At the age of 16 she went to a school in Paris to study singing and piano. It doesn't say how long she attended the school, but it sounds like she may have had the opportunity to acquire even better French than other educated Englishwomen. SignatureBob Cunningham, Southern California, USofA Let's hear it for "like" as a conjunction! > That, of course, is the crucial question. I imagine that any educated > Englishwoman of her time would be expected to have a reasonable fluency > in French. One would not however use "emporter" to refer to a person like that. It really should refer to an inanimate object that can be carried, or to a body on a stretcher, etc. Not to a walking companion, however seasick. ("S'emporter" --to lose one's temper-- is something altogether different.) Pierre SignaturePierre Jelenc The Gigometer www.gigometer.com Home Office Records www.homeofficerecords.com > > That, of course, is the crucial question. I imagine that any educated > > Englishwoman of her time would be expected to have a reasonable fluency [quoted text clipped - 10 lines] > The Gigometer www.gigometer.com > Home Office Records www.homeofficerecords.com It looks like Poirot is using crises as a plural in English but perhaps he is using une crise in French? That would seem to explain the 'la". John Kane, Kingston ON Canada John Kane a écrit : [...] > It looks like Poirot is using crises as a plural in English but > perhaps he is using une crise in French? That would seem to explain > the 'la". I don't see it that way. It seems that you're parsing the sentence as meaning "la crise, il l'a emportée simplement", which really doesn't make any sort of sense in French. > John Kane, Kingston ON Canada SignatureIsabelle Cecchini On May 28, 4:00 pm, Isabelle Cecchini <isabelle.cecch...@wanadoo.fr.invalid> wrote: > John Kane a écrit : > [...] [quoted text clipped - 11 lines] > -- > Isabelle Cecchini I think I was. Oh well. Err wait a minute Christie was an anglophone so she and I might have agreed. On the other hand the reference does not seem to make any sense as a reference to his wife. John Kane, Kingston ON Canada Bob Cunningham a écrit : > I've been trying to understand some of the French phrases > that Hercule Poirot uses in Agatha Christie novels. In most [quoted text clipped - 27 lines] > translations of each other, but it's not at all clear to me > how they would be. I don't think they are translations of each other. The "e" at the end of "emportée" is a sure sign that what is being talked about, the "l' ", is of the feminine grammatical gender, and it surely refers to the wife. "He just carried her away [in his arms, one would guess]." SignatureIsabelle Cecchini > Bob Cunningham a écrit : > > I've been trying to understand some of the French phrases [quoted text clipped - 34 lines] > > "He just carried her away [in his arms, one would guess]." Based on the very helpful responses I'm getting, I'm beginning to think the underlying idea is that because of seasickness she was terrified of sea travel, even crossing the English channel, and he--maybe figuratively--forcefully carried her aboard and made her make the trip despite her terror. She suffered mightily but survived. > I don't think they are translations of each other. The "e" at the end of > "emportée" is a sure sign that what is being talked about, the "l' ", is > of the feminine grammatical gender, and it surely refers to the wife. > > "He just carried her away [in his arms, one would guess]." But then it would rather be "portée" rather than "emportée", don't you think. Besides, one hint that her French may have been wobbly is the first line: "Fortunately her husband was _homme pratique_." I would expect either "an _homme pratique_" or "_un homme pratique_". Pierre SignaturePierre Jelenc The Gigometer www.gigometer.com Home Office Records www.homeofficerecords.com >> I don't think they are translations of each other. The "e" at the end >> of [quoted text clipped - 13 lines] > > I would expect either "an _homme pratique_" or "_un homme pratique_". Not "des hommes pratiques"? Do the French never convert an ailment into a figurative object "to be borne"? Is a malady masculine or feminine? Or don't any feminine versions exist? (Granted, the symptoms were listed, but don't they fit into a single syndrome?) >>> I don't think they are translations of each other. The "e" at the end >>> of [quoted text clipped - 15 lines] > > Not "des hommes pratiques"? I don't think so; that would mean "He was practical men". SignatureRoland Hutchinson Will play viola da gamba for food. NB mail to my.spamtrap [at] verizon.net is heavily filtered to remove spam. If your message looks like spam I may not see it. > Do the French never convert an ailment into a figurative object "to > be borne"? Yes, but the appropriate word then would be something like "accepted", "supported", "tolerated", "suffered" rather than some form of "carried". Note that "emporté", even though it comes from a "carry" root, means something like "carried off" or "taken away" rather than "supported". > Is a malady masculine or feminine? Or don't any feminine versions > exist? The generic "maladie" is feminine; but "mal de mer", as served in the best restaurants, is masculine. SignaturePeter Moylan http://www.pmoylan.org Please note the changed e-mail and web addresses. The domain eepjm.newcastle.edu.au no longer exists, and I can no longer receive mail at my newcastle.edu.au addresses. The optusnet address could disappear at any time. > > I don't think they are translations of each other. The "e" at the end of > > "emportée" is a sure sign that what is being talked about, the "l' ", is [quoted text clipped - 10 lines] > > I would expect either "an _homme pratique_" or "_un homme pratique_". We all know that you say "il est archéologue", "elle est écrivaine", etc. So I might easily have made the same mistake with "homme pratique" that Christie did--and I've probably taken more French classes than anyone here who speaks it as badly as I do. -- Jerry Friedman >> I don't think they are translations of each other. The "e" at the end of >> "emportée" is a sure sign that what is being talked about, the "l' ", is [quoted text clipped - 10 lines] > > I would expect either "an _homme pratique_" or "_un homme pratique_". Maybe Poirot meant to imply that he did it for a living. (Nice work if you can get it.) SignatureRoland Hutchinson Will play viola da gamba for food. NB mail to my.spamtrap [at] verizon.net is heavily filtered to remove spam. If your message looks like spam I may not see it. > > I don't think they are translations of each other. The "e" at the end of > > "emportée" is a sure sign that what is being talked about, the "l' ", is [quoted text clipped - 12 lines] > > Pierre I usually had the impression that Christie was implying broken English in these cases rather than wobbly French. Un homme is pretty basic French. John Kane, Kingston ON Canada >> I don't think they are translations of each other. The "e" at the >> end of "emportée" is a sure sign that what is being talked about, [quoted text clipped - 13 lines] > I would expect either "an _homme pratique_" or "_un homme > pratique_". Homme pratique en vaut deux. As for the "emportée", I bet Christie's original was "He simply carried her off." > >> I don't think they are translations of each other. The "e" at the > >> end of "emportée" is a sure sign that what is being talked about, [quoted text clipped - 16 lines] > Homme pratique en vaut deux. As for the "emportée", I bet Christie's > original was "He simply carried her off." Or "He took her away." -- Jerry Friedman >>>> I don't think they are translations of each other. The "e" at the >>>> end of "emportée" is a sure sign that what is being talked about, [quoted text clipped - 18 lines] > > Or "He took her away." A possible translation; but the context in the OP was of a wife who was afraid to travel by water but was forced to do so by her practical-minded (read: insensitive bully of a) husband. I like "carried off" because it preserves the ambiguity of "emportée" as to whether the removal involved physical force. "Fortunately her husband was homme pratique. He was also very calm, the crises of the nerves, they affected him not. _Il l'a emportée simplement!_ Naturally, when she reached England she was prostrate, but she still breathed." > jerry_fried...@yahoo.com wrote: > [quoted text clipped - 32 lines] > Naturally, when she reached England she was > prostrate, but she still breathed." I think I had her in the wrong place. I thought they were cruising on the Mediterranean or something and he took her home, but now it looks more like she didn't want to cross the mere Channel and he made her do it. So I see you're right. (Not that I wasn't once very uncomfortable in a small boat making a trip considerably shorter than a Channel crossing in perfectly normal seas.) -- Jerry Friedman Pierre Jelenc a écrit : >> I don't think they are translations of each other. The "e" at the end of >> "emportée" is a sure sign that what is being talked about, the "l' ", is [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] > But then it would rather be "portée" rather than "emportée", don't you > think. Indeed "portée" sounds fine, and probably better than "emportée". As others have noted, A. Christie's French sometimes has a slightly weird quality. It has to be said, though, that it's not too difficult to find one or two Balzac's quotations with "emportée" where "portée" might fit as well, for instance http://209.85.135.104/search?q=cache:e1vKLYbYfqUJ:thyme.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/new philo/balzac/getobject.pl%3Fc.11:1:3:6.balzac+%22+m%27a+emport%C3%A9e%22+balzac& hl=fr&ct=clnk&cd=2&gl=fr&client=firefox-a or http://tinyurl.com/2z24kk > Besides, one hint that her French may have been wobbly is the first line: > > "Fortunately her husband was _homme pratique_." > > I would expect either "an _homme pratique_" or "_un homme pratique_". Here the difficulty as I see it lies in the mixture of the two languages. Were the sentence written wholly in French, we might have "son mari, c'était un homme pratique", in which "un" is compulsory, I think, but "Son mari était homme pratique" or "il était homme pratique" doesn't strike me as a mistake. A bit literary or old-fashioned perhaps. SignatureIsabelle Cecchini Bob Cunningham a écrit : > I've been trying to understand some of the French phrases > that Hercule Poirot uses in Agatha Christie novels. In most [quoted text clipped - 29 lines] > > Would anyone care to help? As others have said, the husband who appears to be a practical man carried his wife away so they could cross the channel and reach England. The whole sentence seems to be written in a peculiar style, "the crises of the nerves", ""affected him not" do not appear to be standard English as "homme pratique" while understandable is not that common in French. When reading Agatha Christie's novels I find Poirot's speech particularly amusing, he does make mistakes, not typical a French speaker but typical of the idea that English speakers have of a french speaker. > When reading Agatha Christie's novels I find Poirot's > speech particularly amusing, he does make mistakes, > not typical a French speaker but typical of the idea that > English speakers have of a french speaker. I agree with you. I'm french and have read my share of Christie's stories in english, and at times I've found things that Poirot says in french awkward, if not, more rarely, altogether wrong. Most of it is OK, and are french words sometimes used in english anyway (voilà, cause célèbre... things like that), but sometimes they sound very strange, to the point that when I checked the french translation of the novel, the french expression used in the original english text was changed in the french translation! Cyrano de B. a écrit : >> When reading Agatha Christie's novels I find Poirot's >> speech particularly amusing, he does make mistakes, [quoted text clipped - 8 lines] > checked the french translation of the novel, the french expression used in > the original english text was changed in the french translation! It must be a challenge to translate French as written by an English author for an English audience into French for a French audience but preserving the exotic feeling. > I'm french and have read my share of Christie's stories in > english, and at times I've found things that Poirot says in french awkward, [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] > checked the french translation of the novel, the french expression used in > the original english text was changed in the french translation! Someone translated broken French into idiomatic French? Incidentally, he says "Parbleu!" Dictionaries say that's archaic. Is it still sometimes heard in France? >> I'm french and have read my share of Christie's stories in >> english, and at times I've found things that Poirot says in french [quoted text clipped - 8 lines] > > Someone translated broken French into idiomatic French? Yes, well they had to, Poirot cannot possibly speak bad french: I've seen that done in films too, when a frenchman is played by a non-french actor, but what he says would never be said by french people. > Incidentally, he says "Parbleu!" Dictionaries say that's > archaic. Is it still sometimes heard in France? "Parbleu", "sacrebleu" and the like are only used in theatre and films if the story takes place in some remote past, the middle ages or the renaissance or something. A bit like "ye" is used instead of "the" in english. It is that old! If anybody uses it now, it is an intended joke. >> I'm french and have read my share of Christie's stories in >> english, and at times I've found things that Poirot says in french awkward, [quoted text clipped - 8 lines] >Incidentally, he says "Parbleu!" Dictionaries say that's >archaic. Is it still sometimes heard in France? I believe her first Poirot novel was published in the early 1920s, and he was supposed to be old enough to have retired before he became a refugee. SignatureAl in St. Lou Bob Cunningham a écrit : >> I'm french and have read my share of Christie's stories in >> english, and at times I've found things that Poirot says in french awkward, [quoted text clipped - 8 lines] > Incidentally, he says "Parbleu!" Dictionaries say that's > archaic. Is it still sometimes heard in France? In a story about Pirates you may hear this yes. > Bob Cunningham a écrit : >> Incidentally, he says "Parbleu!" Dictionaries say that's archaic. >> Is it still sometimes heard in France? > In a story about Pirates you may hear this yes. I gather that the "bleu" is, historically, a bowdlerised "Dieu". It's a little strange seeing pirates who are inhibited about cursing. SignaturePeter Moylan http://www.pmoylan.org Please note the changed e-mail and web addresses. The domain eepjm.newcastle.edu.au no longer exists, and I can no longer receive mail at my newcastle.edu.au addresses. The optusnet address could disappear at any time. > > Bob Cunningham a écrit : > [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] > > I gather that the "bleu" is, historically, a bowdlerised "Dieu". Interesting. Strange to see, http://www.wordreference.com/fren/pardieu says "pardieu" means "of course". The _New Shorter Oxford_, in the etymology for "parbleu" says "pardieu" means literally "by God". That seems easier to believe. _Oxford-Hachette French Dictionary_ says "pardi" means "of course", and http://www.wordreference.com/fren/pardi agrees. I suspect somebody goofed with the wordreference entry for "pardieu". > It's a little strange seeing pirates who are inhibited about > cursing. Bob Cunningham a écrit : >>> Bob Cunningham a écrit : >>>> Incidentally, he says "Parbleu!" Dictionaries say that's archaic. [quoted text clipped - 13 lines] > agrees. I suspect somebody goofed with the wordreference > entry for "pardieu". "Pardi" means "of course" and is also a euphemistic alteration of "pardieu", "par Dieu" (by God), but "pardieu" is obsolete and few people would realize the common origin with "pardi". > Strange to see, http://www.wordreference.com/fren/pardieu says > "pardieu" means "of course". The _New Shorter Oxford_, in the > etymology for "parbleu" says "pardieu" means literally "by God". > That seems easier to believe. The obvious corollary is that "Dépardieu" means "God /does/ play dice". Of course he was post-Einstein. SignaturePeter Moylan http://www.pmoylan.org Please note the changed e-mail and web addresses. The domain eepjm.newcastle.edu.au no longer exists, and I can no longer receive mail at my newcastle.edu.au addresses. The optusnet address could disappear at any time. > > Strange to see,http://www.wordreference.com/fren/pardieusays > > "pardieu" means "of course". The _New Shorter Oxford_, in the [quoted text clipped - 11 lines] > receive mail at my newcastle.edu.au addresses. The optusnet > address could disappear at any time. To me the name Depardieu (in which the first 'e' doesn't have an accent, at least in the name of the actor) means "by god" too, because "de par" is just a stronger way of saying "par" in french. And if there is an accent then it would mean "dice by god". As for "pardieu" meaning "of course", well, it would be quite logical for a believer to think that anything coming to existence by god's way would be as a matter of course the only thing that could happen of course :p (^ ^) >> When reading Agatha Christie's novels I find Poirot's >> speech particularly amusing, he does make mistakes, [quoted text clipped - 9 lines] > the novel, the french expression used in the original english text > was changed in the french translation! I have an on-line friend who left the UK about 30 years ago to live in France. The same could be said of his English. Amethyst Deceiver wrote, in <5c57vbF2v83lhU2@mid.individual.net> on Wed, 30 May 2007 13:08:19 +0100: > >> When reading Agatha Christie's novels I find Poirot's > >> speech particularly amusing, he does make mistakes, [quoted text clipped - 12 lines] > I have an on-line friend who left the UK about 30 years ago to live in > France. The same could be said of his English. One of my sons has lived in France for fifteen years and he sometimes uses French word ordering when speaking English. His wife is Dutch and the children are trilingual since they use French at school. SignatureNick Spalding > Bob Cunningham a écrit : > > I've been trying to understand some of the French phrases [quoted text clipped - 44 lines] > not typical a French speaker but typical of the idea that > English speakers have of a french speaker. In one of her books, she has someone ask him how come he sometimes speaks perfect English and other times somewhat imperfect. His answer is that when in a certain sort of environment, he has reasons to speak in a way that English people expect a foreigner to speak. When there's no reason to do that, he can speak fluent, idiomatic English. I wouldn't be surprised to learn that the real reason is that she sometimes gets tired of giving him a French accent and takes the easy route of letting him talk like a native Englishman. On Sun, 27 May 2007 10:16:35 -0700, I said: [...] > In one of her books, she has someone ask him how come he > sometimes speaks perfect English and other times somewhat > imperfect. His answer is that when in a certain sort of > environment, he has reasons to speak in a way that English > people expect a foreigner to speak. When there's no reason > to do that, he can speak fluent, idiomatic English. I've now noticed again where that exchange occurs. It's on the last page of _Three Act Tragedy_. On Tue, 12 Jun 2007 06:17:35 -0700, I said: > On Sun, 27 May 2007 10:16:35 -0700, I said: > [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] > > sometimes speaks perfect English and other times somewhat > > imperfect. "She" is Agatha Christie; "he" is Hercule Poirot. > > His answer is that when in a certain sort of > > environment, he has reasons to speak in a way that English [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] > I've now noticed again where that exchange occurs. It's on > the last page of _Three Act Tragedy_. > When reading Agatha Christie's novels I find Poirot's speech > particularly amusing, he does make mistakes, not typical a French > speaker but typical of the idea that English speakers have of a > french speaker. I've had the impression that that was deliberate. Poirot was a caricature in so many ways. What can you expect of a man whose idea of a pleasant retirement was to grow vegetable marrows? (OK, it might have been an obscure reference to /Candide/, but Christie wasn't the type to make that sort of literary reference.) SignaturePeter Moylan http://www.pmoylan.org Please note the changed e-mail and web addresses. The domain eepjm.newcastle.edu.au no longer exists, and I can no longer receive mail at my newcastle.edu.au addresses. The optusnet address could disappear at any time. >Lanarcam wrote: > [quoted text clipped - 8 lines] >been an obscure reference to /Candide/, but Christie wasn't the type to >make that sort of literary reference.) I always took it to be an absurd joke built upon Sherlock Holmes' retirement to cultivate the bee. SignaturePaul In bocca al Lupo! > "Fortunately her husband was _homme pratique_. > He was also very calm, the crises of the nerves, > they affected him not. _Il l'a emportée simplement!_ > Naturally, when she reached England she was > prostrate, but she still breathed." "Il l'a emportée simplement" means to me "He (has) carried her easily, with no probs" while "Il l'a simplement emportée" means to me "He (has) purely and simply carried her" I'd say the 2nd would be the correct one in the context I see in your posting, and that there may be an error of French in the original, but perhaps I'm wrong. Marius Hancu > I've been trying to understand some of the French phrases > that Hercule Poirot uses in Agatha Christie novels. In most [quoted text clipped - 29 lines] > > Would anyone care to help? He's just saying "He just carried her" [on a trip by sea, without regards for her readiness to be seasick]. The fine point is in the use of "emporter" which implies the passiveness, or willy-nillyness, of the carried person, instead of "emmener". |
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