It was in the summer of 1960-something and I was living in Paris at 10 rue Guy Patin, in an arrondissement you don't want to visit, when I ran out of flints for my Ronson cigarette lighter. Despite the finest French language instruction at my prep school in Germantown and at college, no one had specifically covered the word for "flint."
I borrowed Lee's, my travelling-roomie's, LaRousse, and learned that the translation is "pierre a briquet" which, back-translated literally means "stones of brick." I also inveigled Lee into accompanying me one morning to the local "Tabac" where stamps, envelopes, cigarettes and such things were sold.
Upon entering the Tabac, we were surprised to see so many local Frenchman drinking liquor on their way to work. We assumed that café noir was the morning drink and Courvoisier was reserved for the evening. But we had never seen the poor side of Germantown, where "Baltimore Club" was breakfast.
The bar man takes my order – "je veaux des pierre a briquet, s'il vous plait," says I.
"Oui, oui," says lui, and he ushers outside the bar to a sidewalk table.
So, we sit. I light a Gauloise with the very last spark of my spent Ronson. It is 9 am and Lee and I admire the Parisians on their way to work, a place we will not have to go for many years.
And, here comes the garcon. He has on his tray two bottles of beer that he ceremoniously unveils, and pours into two frosted mugs. "Messieurs," quoth he, "deux bierres a brequenoes" as he bows his way back into the bar.
Lee looks at me. I look at him. We are nineteen years old. It is too early in every way to begin drinking alcohol. Tough brickees.
I borrowed Lee's, my travelling-roomie's, LaRousse, and learned that the translation is "pierre a briquet" which, back-translated literally means "stones of brick." I also inveigled Lee into accompanying me one morning to the local "Tabac" where stamps, envelopes, cigarettes and such things were sold.
Upon entering the Tabac, we were surprised to see so many local Frenchman drinking liquor on their way to work. We assumed that café noir was the morning drink and Courvoisier was reserved for the evening. But we had never seen the poor side of Germantown, where "Baltimore Club" was breakfast.
The bar man takes my order – "je veaux des pierre a briquet, s'il vous plait," says I.
"Oui, oui," says lui, and he ushers outside the bar to a sidewalk table.
So, we sit. I light a Gauloise with the very last spark of my spent Ronson. It is 9 am and Lee and I admire the Parisians on their way to work, a place we will not have to go for many years.
And, here comes the garcon. He has on his tray two bottles of beer that he ceremoniously unveils, and pours into two frosted mugs. "Messieurs," quoth he, "deux bierres a brequenoes" as he bows his way back into the bar.
Lee looks at me. I look at him. We are nineteen years old. It is too early in every way to begin drinking alcohol. Tough brickees.
Ca va.
'Impossible n'est pas français!'
ReplyDeleteYou reminded me of three of my favorite readings in franglais.
The English-to-French-to-English translations of Mark Twain's 'Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County':
http://members.cox.net/deleyd/religion/solarmyth/frog.html
Les Carnets du Major Thomson, which was even made into a movie you might find on Netflix:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/pierre-daninos-486138.html
And "Le Ton Beau de Marot" by the inimitable Doug Hofstadter, computer scientist and Renaissance man. This is a 700 page treatise on the travails of translation, particularly from verse...and based entirely on a 28 line poem with three syllables per line, written by a French poet half a millennium ago to a sick child of his acquaintance:
http://phrontistery.info/letonbeau.html
In fact, the only work of verse that I think may have actually been improved in translation is the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam.