Re: ideas and questions
| From: | Philippe Caquant <herodote92@...> |
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| Date: | Tuesday, March 9, 2004, 7:54 |
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Of course, there are speech styles much more difficult
to understand than this example. Just try to read
Roland Barthes or Lacan and you'll have an idea of it.
But these authors : 1/ wrote for (supposed)
high-educated readers; 2/ seemed to think that the
more obscure they will write, the more clever people
will think they are.
But the sentence I quoted is intended to common metro
users, many of them hardly able to read anything at
all. So what's the use of such a style if nearly
nobody can understand it ?
It would be easy to translate it into usual French:
"Toute personne est tenue d'obtemperer" = "Obeissez"
(You should obey)
"aux injonctions des agents de la RATP" = "quand le
controleur vous dit" (when the controller tells you)
"tendant a faire observer les dispositions contenues
dans le present reglement" = "de respecter le
reglement" (to conform to the rules)
So we come to (for ex): Obeissez quand le controleur
vous dit de respecter le reglement.
Now we can wonder: what is the informative value of
such a sentence ? It should be clear to everybody
that, if they are rules, they should be respected, and
when there is a man with a uniform and a cap marked
RATP coming around, he will not suggest you to break
the rules of the company he is paid by, neither
applause if you do so. So the whole thing is perfectly
pointless. 24 words put together in an abstract
sentence for nothing. Couldn't we save time and ink ?
--- jcowan@REUTERSHEALTH.COM wrote:
> Philippe Caquant scripsit:
>
> > I would like to mention a chef-d'oeuvre of
> > administrative style, you can read it in Paris
> metro :
> > "Toute personne est tenue d'obtemperer aux
> injonctions
> > des agents de la RATP tendant a faire observer les
> > dispositions contenues dans le present reglement".
>
> What exactly makes this sentence hard to understand?
> Its counterparts
> in English generally suffer from excessive Latin and
> Greek vocabulary,
> the passive voice, and too many nouns with too few
> verbs (and the verbs
> that are present generally have minimal semantics).
> Here is a famous
> example by George Orwell (the author of _1984_).
> The left is the King
> James Version (1601) of the Bible with modernized
> orthography; the right
> is Orwell's "translation".
>
> "I returned, and saw under the sun, "Objective
> consideration of contemporary
> that the race is not to the swift, nor phenomena
> compel the conclusion that
> the battle to the strong, neither yet optimum or
> inadequate performance
> bread to the wise, nor yet riches to in the trend
> of competitive activities
> men of understanding, nor yet favour exhibits no
> tendency to be commensurate
> to men of skill; but time and chance with innate
> capacity, but that a
> happeneth to them all." considerable
> element of the unpredictable
> must
> invariably be taken into account."
> --
> Here lies the Christian, John
> Cowan
> judge, and poet Peter,
>
http://www.reutershealth.com
> Who broke the laws of God
>
http://www.ccil.org/~cowan
> and man and metre.