# Cette lettre, comme une pierre jetée ...



## lilybetty

Bonjour, 

Je souhaite traduire cette phrase : "Cette lettre, telle une pierre jetée sur ma vie au cours si tranquille me troublait tant." 
Je propose : "This letter, as a stone thrown on my quiet life was disturbing me".
Je n'arrive pas à traduire "au cours".

Merci !!


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## Itisi

'like a stone thrown at/into my life which was running so smoothly'?


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## lilybetty

Do you have something more poetic maybe ?


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## lilybetty

"like a stone thrown into my peaceful life ?"


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## Itisi

'into my life which was flowing on so peacefully'?


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## Soleil_Couchant

This letter, such a stone thrown into my life that was going so peacefully, was disturbing me so

I don't know


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## Angela Thomas

Poetry, not my strong suit and my French is very weak, but perhaps this will inspire better ideas: 
This letter, like a giant monkey wrench that had been thrown into my oh-so tranquil life, troubled me greatly.


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## Itisi

une pierre= a giant monkey-wrench?  ...


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## lilybetty

Beautiful ! thank you very much Angela !


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## Angela Thomas

No you're right. It's a pretty common idiom, but not poetic at all!


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## Itisi

Never mind poetic, it's just not what the author wrote.


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## Soleil_Couchant

I believe the image being evoked is throwing a stone into still, calm waters. So it's like SPLASH sending ripples and drama through the pond.  But monkey-wrench does have the right connotation, though it's not the right simile.

So: still, calm waters = her life up to this point
the letter = the stone thrown in that disrupts it

I'm stating the obvious I'm sure.

But Angela we can borrow some from yours. Mine was awkward but I like to keep the poetic awkward phrasing of French sometimes (awkward once in English) because it is more formal than how we usually speak.

Maybe "This letter, like a stone thrown into my so calm/tranquil of a life, was disturbing me so."  I might even want "This letter, like a stone thrown into my hitherto so peaceful of a life, was disturbing me so" but that might take too much liberty.

I'm being purposefully flowery/poetic lol. Not how people would speak casually


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## Angela Thomas

Sure borrow away! It would be best to keep it pierre as Itisi said. What about this also borrowing from everyone: 
This letter, like a stone tossed into the peacefully flowing stream that was my life, troubled me so. 
BUT IT'S UP TO LILYBETTY!


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## Soleil_Couchant

ooh, now we're gettin good ...teamwork!


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## Itisi

Sorry, but 'my so peaceful *of a *life' is ungrammatical.


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## Soleil_Couchant

I feel like I've seen things written that way in English, but definitely not commonly. It's an overly formal/literary way of saying things, so I would advise against using it in real life.  However I don't have an example off the top of my head or any grammar rule to back it up, so you might be right.  Maybe remove "of."

Edit: Oh I thought of an example. Like saying, "how nice *of a* person you are!"  so it's "[adj] of a [noun]" like the structure I used. People do say that. I feel you could say "so handsome of a man was he" etc. But ... alas, in spite of my fondness of translation and my  several plus years experience in editing, I actually kind of hate English grammar   so someone feel free to correct me with a rule if it exists. It's possible there was something was missing from my "so peaceful of a life" structure, since I'm going "by ear" here and not knowledge of the underlying grammatical structures.


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## Itisi

Sorry, *SC*, but it's an _underly_ formal/literary way of saying things.  It's simply bad grammar.  'How nice of a person you are' is exactly the same.  Nothing is missing from this structure, on the contrary, words are added that have no purpose.  What a nice person you are.  How nice you are.  My peaceful life.


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## Soleil_Couchant

Okay, agree to disagree. To me it adds to being overly dramatic or poetic, but obviously that's how I feel. No, I wouldn't speak like that in real life. I definitely would not write like that in a newspaper, which goes for brevity. Anyway, lilybetty seemed to like the "monkey-wrench" suggestion the best before so I hope she's got her answer...


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## Itisi

Bad grammar doesn't add drama or make anything more poetic.  And 'overly' is too much.  Sorry to spoil the fun.

And 'monkey-wrench' doesn't belong.


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## Soleil_Couchant

Your first statement is an opinion. Second, please show me the grammar rule that disproves it (or I mean, proves it's incorrect grammar). It's not like I'm saying "so peaceful be of my life is" or something. But if there is an existent rule about this, I would be interested to see it.

And overly, yes I'm saying overly, not sure if you're agreeing with that or not. Is it "too much?" Yes, that was my point. For the sake of being dramatic.


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## Reynald

Les coïncidences parfois... Je venais de lire votre intéressant désaccord quand je tombe sur cette phrase :
_Yet he was as* little of a* Bolshevik as Herbert Hoover. _(Sous la plume de Sinclair Lewis)
Qu'en pensez-vous ? (Le fait que _little_ soit ici un adverbe fait peut-être la différence ?)

(Il faudrait peut-être ouvrir un nouveau fil pour cette construction.)


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## Soleil_Couchant

(je suis d'accord...peut-être, on le devrais faire))

Well as I was going to sleep last night I was talking out loud to myself doing different examples of that type of phrasing, and I'm certain I've heard people talk like that, perhaps in old movies or something. Maybe me calling it "poetic" is wrong, but I still think literary and formal thus would seem overly dramatic nowadays (since no one would talk like that in regular speech now...unless, I think, they were trying to come across as edgy or poetic!). 

I agree there is something awkward about what _I _said, so maybe I used that type of phrase incorrectly within the rest of the sentence structure...But "so/such/how/as/ __ of a __" does exist. Without the qualifier "so/how/as",  then I think it WOULD be wrong. You wouldn't say "you are nice of a person" but again, "how nice of a person you are" is okay. Unfortunately, I don't have the grammatical facts to back this up myself   Just again, going by ear/eyeball of speaking English.

And your example is a comparison, maybe that's why it works...  But see, even with yours, I could see someone saying "He was so little of a Bolshevik, that he was [something far from being a Bolshevik]." That's still why I think maybe something was missing from mine to make it complete/right. like, "so peaceful of a life had I, that this stone of a letter completely disrupted me."  Thanks for your example, though. I'm sure I'll be looking for it now, too!


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## Itisi

Reynald said:


> _Yet he was *as little of a* Bolshevik as Herbert Hoover. _Le fait que _little_ soit ici un adverbe fait peut-être la différence ?


Rien à voir !  Ici il s'agit d'une comparaison, et en effet, 'little' est un adverbe.

Par contre, avec 'so peaceful of a life etc', il ne s'agit pas d'une comparaison, et 'peaceful' est un adjectif.


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## Soleil_Couchant

I still don't think if I said "oh alas I'm so unhappy of a person!" it would be grammatically wrong ...just old fashioned or overly dramatic. And not best practice for any kind of professional writing or speech...but you have freedom to be excessive or sayIng things in less common ways if being creative. But this will go in circles.


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## Kelly B

I agree with Itisi - adding _of a_ when it is unnecessary sounds cumbersome to me, and I find it especially troublesome in a phrase intended to be poetic. 
It's true that it's idiomatic/frequently used. This may be more true in US English than in British English - that might be intensifying the disagreement. On the other hand, I'm a US English speaker and I'm not a fan of it, myself.


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## Soleil_Couchant

I think my point is, yes cumbersome, but that doesn't equate to incorrect grammar. If it is, feel free to show me the rule. And as far as what is "poetic"...that is subjective, evidently.

But alas, I think I've gotten enough backlash that lilbetty won't use my suggestion as it is. lol. how derailed of a post this has beco-  woops


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## Kelly B

Soleil_Couchant said:


> If it is, feel free to show me the rule.


Please refer to this thread in the English Only forum, which in turn refers to a number of others on the subject. It does indeed appear to bother BE speakers more.
not that ADJECTIVE of a NOUN


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## Soleil_Couchant

Kelly B said:


> Please refer to this thread in the English Only forum, which in turn refers to a number of others on the subject. It does indeed appear to bother BE speakers more.
> not that ADJECTIVE of a NOUN



Thanks for showing me something. No definitive answer there either though, seems to be people's preference. Or idiomatic as you said. Some people seem vehemently against it there too, ha.  I'll repeat, I'd only use this if literary or trying to be overly flowery. If I saw it in a news article or essay or scientific journal, I'd edit it to the shortest, most direct form, which is just "my peaceful life" etc.

All right, I do think I'm outvoted overall though.


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## Uncle Bob

Several points:
1- the stone/pebble thrown in a pond and causing ripples is a fairly common metaphor.
It doesn't work with "stream", or any other moving water course, since it doesn't cause anything in particular.

2- The "_tant_" (so much) at the end seems to have been forgotten.

3. "nice of a person" bothers me greatly.
Might I suggest that, to take the easy example,  "little of a bolshevik" and "little a bolshevik" have different meanings, the former designating a generality (bolshevik type of person) and the latter something more specific (a bolshevik) - only a suggestion though.  If I am right "nice a person" becomes obligatory as "person" is already as general as you can get (nice of a person type of person???).

Edit, so preoccupied with the "of" that I forgot No 4 -
4- I assume the monkey wrench is equivalent to "throwing a spanner in the works" which is, as itisi noted, different: it doesn't perturb something it stops it.


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## Soleil_Couchant

I tried to address tant in my very first suggestion, before my loathsome, reviled "of a" second suggestion. ;p



Soleil_Couchant said:


> This letter, such a stone thrown into my life that was going so peacefully, was disturbing me so
> 
> I don't know



But that phrasing is awkward too. I think the stones are going to be aimed at me now !

(And yes,  like "of a type of person" , but I'm waving a white flag)


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## Angela Thomas

Hi all, Perhaps something like this is more pleasing???: 
This letter, like a tossed stone rippling through my placid life, disturbed me no end. 
Let us not forget: poetic license = the freedom to depart from the facts of a matter or from the conventional rules of language when speaking or writing in order to create an effect. 
Great discussion!


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## Uncle Bob

Do stones ripple?

I liked *;*'s proposition, pity it's deleted.

(I was going to write that the original doesn't seem like great art requiring a translator to tax his/her imagination but then perhaps I would be told it was written by Proust or suchlike.)


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## Itisi

Uncle Bob said:


> Do stones ripple?
> 
> (I was going to write that the original doesn't seem like great art requiring a translator's flights of fancy but then perhaps I would be told it was written by Proust or suchlike.)


RIppling stones, that's poetic license for you...

To me - and not just to me - translation work is about being as faithful as possible to the original, not about improving on it, unless the original is so badly written as to be impossible to understand.

On WR, there is a French-English grammar forum, and an English Only forum, and also a Discussion forum, by the way...


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## pointvirgule

Uncle Bob said:


> I liked *;*'s proposition, pity it's deleted.


Thanks, Oncle Robert.  I guess I've got to stop second-guessing myself. Here it is again:
_... like a pebble thrown into the pond of my tranquil life... _


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## Angela Thomas

Boy, this is a tough crowd to please. I don't think anything would make everyone happy, let's just hope the asker is happy and that's what counts. The asker is the only one with full context. 
Kind regards to all,
Angela


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## Soleil_Couchant

pointvirgule said:


> Thanks, Oncle Robert.  I guess I've got to stop second-guessing myself. Here is it again:
> _... like a pebble thrown into the pond of my tranquil life... _



I was going to say the same thing! I liked pointvirgule's, you shouldn't have erased it! Though I see why you did, given the tough crowd Angela mentioned on this thread.


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## pointvirgule

Well, it's practically impossible to have unanimity around a literary translation, faut pas s'en faire avec ça.

I've just thought of a new tweak:
_... like a stone cast into the placid waters of my life... _(yes? no?)

(Credits to S_C for _waters_, and to Angela T. for _placid_.)


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## Soleil_Couchant

The fury might ascend again, but I still think I'd say:

"This letter, like a stone thrown/cast into my so peaceful a life, disturbed me so."

Minus the evil "of" now. 

I like "cast" as opposed to thrown, like you said! The water is the simile or image being evoked, but they didn't literally say "étang" or whatever in the original...n'est-ce pas? Like itisi I do try to stay as close to the original as possible, even if not always flawless about it...clearly... haha.  But I like the poeticism of yours! I like your suggestions. (i.e., don't delete yours! we want to see!)


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## Itisi

SC, just a little more surgery is needed, to take out the 'a'.  Don't worry, it will be painless and you will feel so much better, I assure you...


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## Angela Thomas

I do like cast!


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## Soleil_Couchant

Itisi said:


> SC, just a little more surgery is needed, to take out the 'a'.  Don't worry, it will be painless and you will feel so much better, I assure you...



Shrug, in the majority of those threads Kelly B shared, the bone of contention was the "of," not the "a"...so I'm leaving this one. Let this stone sink to the bottom of the pond now!


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