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paranoïa en secteur
ferments d'images
Jul 12, 2011 14:43
13 yrs ago
French term

Aussi ne sera-on pas etonne que le pieton n'y manque pas de superbe

French to English Marketing Journalism paris
Montorgueil est le Neuilly de la nouvelle bourgeoisie. On ne se fiera pas a son allure decontractee et on observera que s'il porte le jean plus volontiers que le pantalon de flanelle et le blouson plus naturellement que le blazer croise, c'est que le jean est de marque et le blouson de chez le meilleur faiseur
Proposed translations (English)
3 +1 Not surprising therefore that the people in the street have a certain swagger in their step
4 +1 So it's not surprising that people strolling by have plenty of panache.
4 It should come as no surprise that the man in the street is not lacking in elegance.
4 -1 Not surprisingly, the people in the streets have a subtle elegance
3 Hardly surprising is it, then, to observe a touch of the debonair strolling the pavement
3 So a pretentious pedestrian shall come as no surprise here
3 -1 it's also no surprise that the pedestrian is not without a certain...
3 -1 Not unexpectedly, pedestrians there do not fail to exhibit the marks of their (social) rank)
Change log

Jul 12, 2011 15:07: writeaway changed "Field" from "Art/Literary" to "Marketing" , "Field (specific)" from "Poetry & Literature" to "Journalism"

Discussion

cc in nyc Jul 14, 2011:
About the French... I meant to ask, oughtn't it have been "Aussi ne sera-t-on pas étonné que...." ?
cc in nyc Jul 12, 2011:
Formality Petitavoine's comment prompts me to notice the formality of the language, with "aussi" + inversion structure.
Jocelyne Cuenin Jul 12, 2011:
c'est peut-être un peu sévère ! le vocabulaire ne me semble pas très moderne, avec en plus "faiseur" ... Qu'est-ce que vous pensez de "dash"? Je ne connais pas ce mot dans ce sens : dash - distinctive and stylish elegance; "he wooed her with the confident dash of a cavalry officer" (the free dictionary)
polyglot45 Jul 12, 2011:
superbe is a somewhat arrogant swagger - strutting their stuff. These passers-by fancy themselves. cf. expression "perdre de sa superbe"
FX Torrentz Jul 12, 2011:
Haughty elegance ? Diana Ross was the first modern pop diva, a benchmark of haughty elegance that laid the path for Whitney, Mariah and Christina.
http://www.dallasobserver.com/2011-02-24/music/diana-ross/
polyglot45 Jul 12, 2011:
where does the sentence in the title fit in with the rest? At the beginning? The end?
Marian Vieyra Jul 12, 2011:
@ cc in nyc Thanks for video link. I've just realised there is a play on words. Superbe can mean arrogance, haughtiness so is the correct meaning to choose for Montorgueil = the Street of (mountain) Pride :)
cc in nyc Jul 12, 2011:
Rue Montorgueil video and Wiki http://www.geobeats.com/videoclips/france/paris/rue-montorgu...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rue_Montorgueil

Proposed translations

+1
40 mins
Selected

Not surprising therefore that the people in the street have a certain swagger in their step

they're probably so far up their own proverbial that they haven't seen daylight in years
Peer comment(s):
agree cc in nyc : I think you've hit it. (I might just drop "the" before "people.")
22 mins
Something went wrong...
4 KudoZ points awarded for this answer. Comment: "It is not surprising therefore that the pedestrian on this street has a certain swagger to his step"
-1
13 mins

it's also no surprise that the pedestrian is not without a certain...

arrogance/charm/magnificence, haughtiness etc

--------------------------------------------------
Note added at 15 mins (2011-07-12 14:59:36 GMT)
--------------------------------------------------

@DLyons Was also thinking 'person walking in the street' but just left it as pedestrian as not much context.
Peer comment(s):
disagree Richard Nice : aussi= therefore
1 hr
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-1
17 mins
French term (edited): Aussi ne sera-on pas etonne que le pieton n\'y manque pas de superbe

Not surprisingly, the people in the streets have a subtle elegance

Or a definite sartorial flair, or anything along those lines.
Peer comment(s):
disagree Richard Nice : superbe ain't subtle
1 hr
It goes on to say that they look subtly smarter than most people.
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+1
53 mins
French term (edited): Aussi ne sera-t-on pas etonne que le pieton n'y manque pas de superbe

So it's not surprising that people strolling by have plenty of panache.

Or "people strolling on the street."

Just another possibility.
Peer comment(s):
agree Sam Cogdell : Nice, I like the p-p-p alliteration, too!
3 hrs
Thank you!
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-1
1 hr

Not unexpectedly, pedestrians there do not fail to exhibit the marks of their (social) rank)

...

--------------------------------------------------
Note added at 1 hr (2011-07-12 16:01:01 GMT)
--------------------------------------------------

...To exhibit in their postures and gestures...
Peer comment(s):
disagree Tony M : Really doesn't sound natural or idiomatic in EN to my ears as a native speaker. And it's also a question of register...
1 hr
Thank you, Tony...But how can you be sure since you probably don't have categoric criteria to judge " conformity to established. idioms" ? Tony's ear?...In any case, I think you're right.
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4 hrs

Hardly surprising is it, then, to observe a touch of the debonair strolling the pavement

Some inversion introduced to maintain the style, and a shift from pedestrians to pavements

--------------------------------------------------
Note added at 4 hrs (2011-07-12 18:52:54 GMT)
--------------------------------------------------

sorry please amend to plural "pavements"
Reference:

http://www.division2.com.au/news.aspx?skip=40

Peer comment(s):
neutral cc in nyc : "a touch of the debonair" sounds a little tame in this context
15 mins
Something went wrong...
13 hrs

So a pretentious pedestrian shall come as no surprise here

Shouldn't it read "Aussi ne sera-t-on pas étonné que le piéton n'y manque de superbe"

Aussi = So then?

Inversion is common if a sentence starts with "aussi" (it's not a question, but a declarative sentence)

n'y manque de superbe = doesn't lack any pretentiousness there (y = the place in question)


I said "shall" as it appears to a quite a formal register (give it "style" lol).


I hope this helps.
Something went wrong...
16 hrs

It should come as no surprise that the man in the street is not lacking in elegance.

The number of possibilities is endless.
It would have been nice to know whether the phrase in question comes before or after the extract psoted as context.
I have deliberately ignored translating "aussi" here. Without the position in the whole paragraph of the sentence itself, I may be wrong, but I suspect that "aussi" is not even here as a linking word, almost for decoration which is often the case!

Explantaion of choices made :

"it should come as no surprise..." - standard expression in UK English, the "should" implying mildly that those not in the know may indeed be surprised. Here the reader is invited to join the ranks of those who have understood the social code.

"the man in the street" - a deliberately ordinary expression used to describe the common mortal, accentuating the point of what is ordinary here may belies the underlying modern chic.

"not lacking..." - Admittedly a bit of a claque on the French original but which works equally well in English here in my view.

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