French expression – soulever plusieurs préoccupations – expression bien française.

Back in May 2007, I wrote a post about the creeping in of English syntax into French speech. I was particularly shocked by the expression

“soulever plusieurs préoccupations”  used in a Quebec newspaper.

I have since acquired a very reliable and comprehensive spell checker call Antidote

which has a dictionary not only of words but also of their use in sentences. Used as a direct object of a verb, as in this case. “Soulever des préoccupations”  turned out to be quite idiomatic, especially when I examined the examples provided. There were 28 other examples of direct object use, showing their frequency in decreasing order. 

I have noticed lately several hits on that particular post and wanted to correct my initial opinion. As they say, the more you know, the less you know.

Dans mon billet du 8 mai 2007 j’avais été impitoyable envers les utilisateurs de l’expression « soulever plusieurs préoccupations».  Le récent achat du logiciel de correction Antidote

m’a fait découvrir un nouveau monde.  Je parle du dictionnaire Antidote qui non seulement définit les mots, mais en donne l’usage dans différents contextes.

Dans le cas présent, il donne 28 occurrences du mot préoccupation utilisé comme complément direct, dont soulever des préoccupations.   L’usage est indiqué en ordre décroissant. Autres exemples : exprimer sa préoccupation, prendre en compte d’autres préoccupations, souligner sa préoccupation, réitérer sa préoccupation, etc.

J’ai remarqué ces derniers temps que plusieurs visiteurs s’étaient attardés sur ce billet et je voulais rectifier le tir et corriger mon opinion de l’usage de cette expression. Comme on dit, plus on apprend, plus il reste à apprendre.

 

La ville de Québec est dans le trou\Quebec City in the hole

This is an instance when knowing English idiomatic expressions helps you to understand a Québecois expression. I chanced upon this item in the Canoe news and was struck by the formulation which was not familiar to me.

Indeed, one of the English meanings of “to be in the hole” is to be in debt and that is exactly the situation the city of Québec is in, its deficit has increased instead of being reduced.

The author of the piece (notre journaliste mobile??), has a very French sounding name, so how do we explain this apparent Anglicism? Reading further, one finds the expression

“le conseil municipal .. a soulevé plusieurs préoccupations relativement à la gestion des fonds publics….

Let’s see: “ City Council voiced many concerns relative to the management of the public funds…

Is this just a bad translation which contains not only French words in an English meaning but also uses English syntax (i.e. word order)? The expression “soulever des préoccupations” is not idiomatically French. One could have said:

“Le conseil a exprimé un grand nombre de préoccupations sur la gestion des fonds publics.”

Let us look at another example:

“La ville a fait 82 millions de dollars de revenus et en a dépensé 94 millions.

Does it sound like an English echo: “The city made $82 millions in revenue and spent 94 millions.”

A more idiomatic phrasing would have been: “Les revenus de la ville ont atteint 82 millions alors que ses dépenses - 94 millions.”

It would be interesting to find out whether the readers of Canoe Infos have noticed this piece and how they reacted to the way it is written.

I did a Google search for “faire le trou” and found a completely different meaning in the jargon of the Paris transportation network :

Etre "dans le trou" : Se dit lorsqu'un machiniste a pris beaucoup de retard par rapport au bus qui le précède. Cette situation aura pour conséquence une charge plus importante (donc une prise de retard qui ne cessera d'augmenter). Au métro on parle de tassée (prendre la tassée). A la sncf un train en retard est qualifié de "coulé".