So it is Sunday afternoon, and I am taking a break from watching Sex and the City episodes online to do some of my translation work. Since I am translating an instructional script for tai chi, I have been feeling distressed that I am translating descriptions of the movements that were translated from... whatever language they speak in China (ugh.. my ignorance is showing), into French, then into English. So I started to ask myself, what is the French word for distressing? And since I already had a few translating tabs open, I quickly discovered that I could choose from ''pénible'' or ''bouleversant(e)''. I hear people say ''pénible'' a lot, and if I had had to guess what it meant before I read that it's ''distressing'', I would have said... hmm something between shitty/pathetic, based on all the contexts I've heard this word used in. Plus I don't really believe that French people get distressed. They get irritated, angry, frustrated... I just haven't seen a lot of distressed French people, ever.
So...moving on to bouleversant(e). When I translate that back into English it is ''deeply distressing'' or ''shattering''. So I can't see when that would ever be used. I think the word bouleversant sounds like a happy word. If I made up a translation I would say it sounds like a word that should mean ''bubbly''. Doesn't it sound like a French word for bubbly, if you didn't know any better? The French word for bubbly is ''pétillant(e)'' which, if I was in charge of assigning meanings to French words, would be the word for gassy, because it reminds me of the French verb ''to fart'' (péter).
I'm not sure if the French are ever gassy though. I don't think I've heard a French fart yet. Maybe it would sound different than an English fart, like how French people getting hurt say ''aie'' instead of ''ow''. But an asshole is an asshole, and I think assholes all over the world are probably speaking the same language.
One last word. When I was looking up pénible, it reminded me of the word ''pourri'' because to me they seem to be used in kind of similar contexts. So ''pourri'' means ''rotten, corrupt''. Which makes me wonder, what is up with the word ''pot-pourri''. Rotten pot? Isn't that the opposite of what it actually is?
The French word for spam is ''pourriel''. I wonder if that is actually used (the word for email is ''courriel'' but nobody actually says that, they say email or mail. I'm a fan of saying ''mail'' because it's shorter than ''email'' and there is another word for mail...''courrier'' I think).
Well, I'd better get back to my real translation work, or my bosses are going to be ''bouleversants'' because my procrastination to translation ratio is way too high.
edit:
I've just come across something else. While I was looking up the word ''écartement'' (space/gap), I came across the phrase ''écartement des lèvres d'une plaie'' and the English translation was ''anastole''. Anastole? I've never heard of it. Apparently it is ''an obsolete term for the gaping of a wound''. How did a word like that become obsolete? The literal translation from the French would be something like, ''the space of the lips of a wound''. French is a beautiful language, n'est pas? Even the wounds have lips.
