# thv.



## birder

A medical report contains the follwing:

Beperkte teens van strain *thv.* de posterieure fibulotalaire ligament....

and

Intramedullaire cystische structuur met transcorticale uitbreiding *thv.* het distale tibiadyafyse.....

What does the abbreviation in bold mean, please?


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## Frank06

Ter hoogte van (?) 
How do you say this one in English? At the level of?

F


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## birder

Thank you, Frank. Yes, that's perfect and quite common.

Either

at the level of 

or

on the level of

For medical descriptions I prefer the first.


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## Peterdg

Frank06 said:


> Ter hoogte van (?)
> How do you say this one in English? At the level of?
> 
> F


Het vraagteken hoeft heus niet


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## Beninjam

thv is a pure calque of "au niveau de". Typical of the fractured style of Belgian officialese. You can translate it as "next to", "near", "adjacent to", "close to", etc.


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## Frank06

Beninjam said:


> thv is a pure calque of "au niveau de". Typical of the fractured style of Belgian officialese.


Where do you get this idea from? Can you please substantiate this claim?


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## Beninjam

Frank06 said:


> Where do you get this idea from? Can you please substantiate this claim?



Because I'm an experienced translator (more than 30 years) from both Belgian Dutch (Flemish) and Belgian French.
I am a sworn translator for both languages to the Court of First Instance at Antwerp. 
Also because when I working for my translation degree I had a course with a certain Prof. J. Van Haver, who taught a course called Taalbeheersing in the first candidature. From him I learnt that ter hoogte van and many others (ter plaatse, enz.) came into Belgian Dutch via translation.


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## HKK

Your experience is impressive, and I am willing to take your word for it that prof. Van Haver is or was a respectable academic. Still, that does not make everything you or he says correct; a substantiation is not the same as an appeal to authority.


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## Frank06

Beninjam said:


> From him I learnt that ter hoogte van and many others (ter plaatse, enz.) came into Belgian Dutch via translation.


1. Which era? Please give us data which are slightly more to the point and more clarifying than your or Prof. Van Haver's undoubtedly impressive careers.
2. Even if it would be "a pure calque", then what's wrong with it?
3. Even if it would be "fractured style of Belgian officialese", whatever you or Prof. Van Haver mean by that, then how come it's so incredibly common in at least  written Dutch in the Netherlands and in written/spoken language in Flanders?  

Frank


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## Beninjam

Agreed that it's incredibly common and as style I find it incredibly awful too. 
Prof J. Van Haver (taught at Leuven) would have retired in the early eighties. 
He did publish and many of his courses were sold via ACCO (Leuven). 
The fact that it is a calque is not really the point though. The thrust of my argument is that you should have a knowledge of French to understand a lot of Dutch.  
I know this is politically incorrect but so am I. The sad thing is that Flemish nationalism gets in the way of understanding how Flemish has developed.


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## birder

As a Canadian from an English-speaking family in Québec and a former resident of Paris, Vence (Alpes-Maritimes) and Viège (a.k.a Visp) in Valais. I have to get back into this thread and ask.......

*Which French?* 

Et puis quoi, encore?


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## Frank06

Beninjam said:


> Agreed that it's incredibly common and as style I find it incredibly awful too.


Okay, you might not find it to be the most elegant string of words, but, let's be honest, that doesn't really matter.

So, in short: 
- you don't have any arguments for "ter hoogte van" being a calque, except for the name of a professor and the statement that he wrote many books published by a company based in Leuven.
- you try to cover up your lack of arguments by stating that Flemish nationalism keeps people from understanding the development of Dutch, and more specifically, the influence of French on it. 

Do you really think that there are many people who have a basic notion of the history of Dutch in Flanders, including the part in which the cultural and economic elite in the major Flemish cities spoke French which had a major impact on e.g. the city dialects to name just one aspect (see Antwerp, Gent and that other big village... wait, what's its name, oh yeah, Bruxelles) and who'd deny a serious and profound French influence?
Do you think that there are many people of my generation and probably slightly older who didn't have to learn about so-called gallicisms, which, whether one likes them or not, is an indication that French had a major influence upon Dutch (as opposed to e.g. inuitisms, tagalogisms and !xhosa-isms).

I'm sorry, but I have the impression that you're beating around the bush. 

And, oh yeah, the point *is* whether or not "ter hoogte van" is a calque or not: *you* brought up that idea, but failed to substantiate it. Now, it would be _*great*_ and interesting to see some evidence for ter hoogte van, ter plaatse, etc. being calques (especially the time frame could of of interest, given the cases here), so could you please do your best and provide some proof? Real proof.

Thank you.


Frank


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## birder

And I question whether it is evan a "pure calque,' and whether that makes any difference, anyway.

It seems to me that it is an undiluted and precise rendering from its closest related language, which is not French but German, where one says...

...auf der Höhe von...

I just did not pick up on the abbreviation "thv" not expecting to start World War 3.


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## Joannes

1. Given the linguistic context, I would not be surprised if the construction were a calque from French, but there aren't any obvious reasons why it should be either.
2. I don't really care that much if it is, or not -- fact is people use it a lot. Normative sources are fine with the construction too, even though for gallicisms they sometimes aren't.
That said, Beninjamin is the first one from whom I hear that *ter hoogte van* is a calque from French -- I didn't find a source confirming that; I didn't find any claiming otherwise either.

To be honest, who cares anyway..

I'm sure that knowing some French may definitely help one's understanding of local Belgian Dutch varieties, especially if your native tongue is Netherlandic Dutch (so you recognize words and tendencies) or Japanese (because in that case any Indo-Euopean language would be helpful, German or a Standard Dutch undoubtedly even more so).. Nihil novi sub sole..


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## Peterdg

Anyway, even if it were a calque of French, it would be from "à la hauteur de" and not from "au niveau de". And indeed, who cares.


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