# Tourner dans le vide



## Aude35

Hi !
I am translating a short text for a friend, from french into english (although my mother tongue is french) and I can't find how to translate "tourner dans le vide".
The text is about boats that were not properly mounted and the sentence is :
_Sur les ponts, les SAFETY LINES sont mal fixées : les vis tournent dans le vide._

Thanks for you help !!!
Aude


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## SwissPete

It describes screws that are not holding because the holes they are in are too big. Oddly enough, I can't find the appropriate term in English...


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## Gutenberg

le pas des vis est complètement usé = the screw threads are worn out (?)


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## johndot

The (screw) threads are (have been ) stripped.


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## SwissPete

It could be the screws' threads, or it could be the wood / metal / plastic the screws are fastened into. At any rate, the end result is the same.


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## Icetrance

It means when you're putting the screws in, it's not making contact. 

dans le vide = in air/emptiness

_It's like an empty screw hole._


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## Kelly B

The screws are spinning uselessly in their holes...?


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## Aude35

Hi everyone,

Thanks for your answers !

I did not think this would be a problem for english speakers !!! ;-) 

Here is more context : The boats are brand new but full of defects. So neither the threads nor the holes should have worn out. It looks more like the holes are too big for the screws or the srews too thin for the holes...

Does this help ?


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## Aude35

Kelly B said:


> The screws are spinning uselessly in their holes...?



Yes, I think that would fit. Or maybe I should add that the screws do not fit the holes ?


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## sam's mum

were just turning in thin air?


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## Icetrance

sam's mum said:


> were just turning in thin air?


 
Yes, or in an empty screw hole as I said above.


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## SolangeC

Johndot has it right - the screw threads are stripped or stripped out. This is a fairly standard way of describing the situation.


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## Cath.S.

_The screws turn without tightening_?


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## sam's mum

Another suggestion - _just spinning in mid-air_


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## SolangeC

Again, the context is  "_les SAFETY LINES sont mal fixées : les vis tournent dans le vide"_ , so this means that the screws just keep turning uselessly because they (more properly, their threads) can't tightly dig in to anything. Usually this is referred to as "stripped screw" or "screw with stripped threads", or "stripped threads". They are all understood as the same thing.


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## Cath.S.

_Si je comprends bien, stripped threads_ signifierait que le problème vient de pas de vis (filetages) abîmés, mais _rien_ n'indique que ce soit le cas ici.
Au contraire :


> It looks more like the holes are too big for the screws or the screws too thin for the holes...


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## johndot

If the threads were stripped, the screws would appear (to the eye) to be too small for the holes and would simply spin more or less freely instead of tightening.


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## Cath.S.

If the wood were rotten, the screws would also appear (to the eye) to be too small for the holes and would simply spin more or less freely instead of tightening.


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## SolangeC

Egueule, sams mum, aude35,  KellyB – vous avez raison. Aprés avoir mieux lu le segment disputé, je vois que j’ai tort. Sera plus correct d’utiliser: the screws do not fit the holes, the holes are too big for the screws


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## johndot

That’s right! The absence of thread(s) would make the screws too small or the holes too big!


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## pollyboffin

It sounds to me like:

"the screws are wobbly and loose" 

although you may think the word "wobbly" is too colloquial.


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## SolangeC

well, the text says "les vis tournent dans le vide" - the screws turn in the emptiness, turn meaninglessly. What I can't understand is - how can a screw in an oversized hole or a stripped screw or a screw that is too small for its hole hold ANYTHING?!?


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## Aude35

That's the point ! They do not hold anything! And that's one of the reasons the customer who bought these boats is mad!!!!
Thanks for your precious help, everyone !!!!


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## Keith Bradford

It simply means "the screws did not grip".


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## Notafrog

I'm on this page because I was looking for a generic way of saying "tourne dans le vide" in the mechanical sense. It clearly means turns with no resistance, but we wouldn't say that in English.
"Just spins round" or "just turns round and round" might work for a screw but it doesn't really work for, say, an electric motor.
Finally the best I came up with was "turns to no effect/without effect" (or "rotates to no effect" if more appropriate to the context).

Just in case this helps anyone looking for a more generic translation.


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## SolangeC

I'm not so sure about "turns to no effect/without effect" for AE audience. Maybe "the motor turns/turns over but nothing happens"


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## Icetrance

Je dirais: _The motor just idles._ Je me fais l'idée de quelqu'un qui appuie sur l'accélérateur sans qu'il aille nulle part. Serait-ce le cas ici?


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## SolangeC

Well, it seems like in the limited context we have, the motor is expected to cause something to happen.  If a motor is simply idling, it seems that one expects it to do just that, sit there idling and nothing else . This is an interesting translation question, indeed! (I am not mechanically-inclined...)


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## Notafrog

Indeed. I can't think of an example where idling is not an intentional state.


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## Martyn94

sam's mum got the right expression an age ago: if the screws are turning "dans le vide": just not gripping, with no particular indication that they are stripped, then they "are turning in thin air".


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## Notafrog

Not bad at all. Not so happy when it's a motor though.


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## Martyn94

Sorry to have missed the change of the thing that's turning.  But I don't see why " turns in thin air" is any less apt if the context doesn't allow you to say anything more specific. If it were idling or racing (which you might expect from a motor under no load), the French could say so. If it wanted to say that it's doing nothing, it could say that. What it says (as you report) is "tourner dans le vide", so why not go with it?


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## SolangeC

When I considered all 3 threads for "tourner dans le vide", the common idea is that something's performance was pointless, not as expected. The screws were stripped out so they just spun uselessly in their holes. The printer ran without printing anything. The roller shutter would run forever if not shut off. 

Turning "in thin air" brings to mind more the idea of  being out in the open  (his safety line caught on a dead branch and he hung there turning in thin air for several hours before being rescued"


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## Notafrog

Martyn94 said:


> Sorry to have missed the change of the thing that's turning.  But I don't see why " turns in thin air" is any less apt if the context doesn't allow you to say anything more specific. If it were idling or racing (which you might expect from a motor under no load), the French could say so. If it wanted to say that it's doing nothing, it could say that. What it says (as you report) is "tourner dans le vide", so why not go with it?



I can't really explain it logically and I can't honestly fault the term. It's more of a feeling.
The physical difference is easy to define: the motor shaft is supposed to pick up a load and continue turning whereas the screw is supposed to engage with a thread then lock up.
If this fails, the actual physical result is the motor rotating as normal but the business end of the machine not getting the message, or the screw turning round and round abnormally because there is no effective mating thread for it to lock up with.

The passage I was translating reads "Alarme 521: lors de la phase d'initialisation de la machine, le moteur de l’étanchéité tourne dans le vide ou la tête de l’étanchéité ne va pas en butée mécanique" ("étanchéité" here is a leak-tightness checking device and "moteur" is the servo drive for it). The expression I finally used was "turns to no effect" (that was before I consulted this topic).
"Turns in thin air" would no doubt have got the message across. But now I think about it, the original probably misses the point. The important thing is not the motor spinning but the inspection head not moving. The people who write these things aren't always trained technical writers (and I'm being kind when I say that).


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## Kelly B

Oooh, I like context. I'd probably have used Icetrance's _idles, _or maybe _runs_/_operates without engaging the thingy_, if I had an appropriate word for _thingy_.
Still, _turns to no effect_ is easy to understand.


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## CarlosRapido

turn to no effect - get nowhere fast - tourner dans le vide - virer dans le beurre (Canada) - pédaler dans la choucroute (France) = all fairly equivalent  

for screws, and a formal venue - the screws have no purchase (for whatever reason) [_purchase_ = a firm grip on something]


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## Notafrog

CarlosRapido said:


> [_purchase_ = a firm grip on something]



+1


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