La Canicule

Yes, it has been hot recently , with temperatures in London moving above 30 degrees celsius for the first time this year.

People here generally take this in their stride and many positively welcome the heat, which makes a change in a country where the norm is often cool rainy days.

We use various words in English to describe hot weather, one of which is ‘heatwave’, which seems particularly evocative.

In French one can speak of ‘la canicule’. This particular term has different connotations especially since 2003 and this year with temperatures rising above 40 degrees in large parts of the country.

‘La canicule’ evokes heat that is so intense as to be actually dangerous, particularly for more vulnerable people. The French authorities both national and local have put in place a great network of help for older people in particular to keep them safe from the effects of the current high temperatures.

A strange word, it comes from the latin ‘canicula’ little dog (female), a nickname given to the star Sirius, which rises at the same time as the Sun between the 24 July and 24th August and whose influence was thought in Antiquity to be behind the frequent hot spells, not to say heatwaves, often experienced around this time.

In English it can be translated by the expression ‘dog days’ corresponding to the summer rising and setting of Sirius.

Linguistic differences in wine description

This week, a few thoughts from the world of wine description.

We often tend to find the same descriptors being used again and again in wine tasting notes. The terms used are often related to the smell and taste of fruits, flowers, spices and other aromas which the experienced taster (or more accurately perhaps, smeller) may be able to detect in the wine being tasted.

The WSET (Wine & Spirit Education Trust) Systematic Approach to tasting lists around one hundred aroma and flavour characteristics useful in describing the particular organoleptic profile of a wine.

Tasters however often resort to a type of shorthand to rapidly give a succinct indication in their tasting notes of how a wine will taste to the average consumer and some flavours or aromas will be encountered more often. This will often vary according to the origin, national or linguistic, of the author.

In English-speaking circles there is often mention of ‘blueberries’ or ‘blackberries’; whereas the French will often plump for ‘cassis’ (blackcurrant). Floral aromas will often be described as being of ‘elderflower’ by anglophones whereas ‘acacia’ will often be used by French-speakers.

This is typical of the way different languages will divide up the visible and invisible universe in order to describe it. This goes for colour and sound as well as for taste and smell. One man’s yellow is another man’s brown or red. Yet the actual colour is the same.  

Translation, therefore, can also be a game of taste and smell and finding appropriate ways of accurately communicating the equivalent perception in the other language.

Fashion Statement

I was asked last week to translate some text containing the French word ‘marinière’.

Now you would imagine that there is some simple equivalent English word for this but nothing could be further from the truth.

You often find this word in recipes such as moules marinière which refers to mussels cooked with wine, cream, parsley etc. So far so good.

But it is also a garment worn by sailors in north western France originally but which has now become a fashion item featuring navy and white stripes. Of course being a fashion item it might not be navy and white, it might be sleeveless, long-sleeved, butterfly-sleeved or any other combination.

How to translate this ? You could try sailor shirt, sailor top, French sailor shirt, Breton sailor shirt, or even marinière.

So it’s not that easy, and without seeing the actual garment referred to in the text, the generic sailor shirt will probably have to do.