# conflit de canard



## BrightonNative

Hello / bonjour,
I'm stuck with a duck! I have to translate this expression or jeu de mots "conflit de canard" into English and I'm sure I'm missing something. I _can _see that "conflit" is close to "confit" de canard. Also, a canard can mean a rag or newspaper. Also, cassoulet is made with duck thighs. But what is the writer trying to say? Can a native speaker of French understand the joke? Thanks!

I've had to cut out a lot of the paragraph as it would have been much too long but here's some context:

Context: L’enquête Lauragaise : conflit de canard(s) au pays du cassoulet
Jean-Jacques Beauvarlet-Charpentier au pays du cassoulet? Le sujet est néanmoins suffisamment sérieux pour être narré : Joseph Laguna (1723-après 1793), organiste de la cathédrale Saint-Nazaire de Carcassonne, eut comme élève un certain Bernard Viguerie qu’il envoya en 1783 se former à Paris auprès de… Jean-Jacques Beauvarlet-Charpentier. Un an plus tard, le sieur Laguna quitta la cité pour s’installer dans la capitale du Lauragais, pays du cassoulet, (...) Ce qu’en dira plus tard monsieur Fétis sera passé sous silence tant il est vraisemblable que notre érudit biographe Bruxellois n’appréciait pas davantage le cassoulet... que les canards.


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## Garoubet

C'est une blague ancienne lorsqu'il s'agit de conflit et de canard; je ne vois rien dans le texte qui puisse faire croire qu'il s'agit d'autre chose que de "duck".


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## jetset

_A fowl's game in the land of cassoulet_ (?)


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## Uncle Bob

According to Wikipedia J-J B-C never left Paris after 1783 so his going to the _pays du cassoulet_ (Languedoc e.g.Carcassonne) announced Line 1, would be a _canard_ (fake news)


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## tartopom

In your story there's also the idea of "canard" synonym for " bum note / wrong note". One guy was an organist.


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## BrightonNative

Hello, and thank you to each and every one of you, Garoubet, jetset, Uncle Bob and tartopom, for your replies and thoughts. I see the possibility of a "canard" - fake news - as pointed out astutely by Uncle Bob and tartopom, indeed a bum note!
So, should I say "duck conflict" simply? I don't see how I could get "bum note" or "hoax" in there as a play on words in English.
(Perhaps I should add that Bernard Viguerie went to live permanently in Paris, and Monsieur Fétis, who is mentioned at the end, was a renowned Belgian art critic, but I don't think this has a bearing on anything necessarily.)


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## tartopom

clinker rocky ruck road ?? 
Well of course we're so far from duck and co !!!


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## jetset

I don't see anything but an easy pun relating to the duck, like "A ducklemma", not a reference to music, news nor a paper.


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## BrightonNative

Hello, tartopom and jetset. Yes, I suppose "duck and co" has to remain the order of the day! I like ducklemma - but what about the finishing catchline mentioning that "duck" again? 

La méthode de Viguerie est la plus vendue ! - à l’époque. Ce qu’en dira plus tard monsieur Fétis [a critic] sera passé sous silence tant il est vraisemblable que notre érudit biographe Bruxellois n’appréciait pas davantage le cassoulet...que les canards.

What can I say which would make sense here? ...he did not appreciate cassoulet any more than he did ...ducks?!  I don't get how this relates to anything - _*perhaps tartopom's "bum notes" is good here?*_


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## jetset

"When duck sucks" (?) *running out of puns for today*


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## BrightonNative

Thank you, jetset - when duck sucks. 
As a Frenchman, what, in your opinion, do you think the writer means in French?


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## .Nina.

Hi,

This is a very interesting but difficult translation!

Perhaps you could try something with the word "rag", since it would be ok with the newspaper connotation, it also can make people think about music (even if it is not the good period), and since it means "taquiner", it could mean a sort of "conflit". Perhaps "rag(ging) the duck" or something like that... I am not very convinced of my own try though!


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## Itisi

It's got to be about false notes...

Forget about an impossible pun:  'False notes in the land of the cassoulet'.


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## ain'ttranslationfun?

"quackup"?


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## Nicomon

I agree that the pun between   _confit_ and  _conflit _is impossible.  I think "false notes" makes sense in that musical context.  
But I can't resist posting this image


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## Uncle Bob

Umm, I didn't suggest "bum note" but the rather different"fake news" (though they may be considered a bit synonymous)!

Le Robert for "_canard_":_5. _ _Fausse nouvelle lancée par la presse pour abuser le publique_. (1750, not 2017).

Since the author is commenting on what the biographer from Brussels did or didn't write this meaning is possibly appropriate (along with bum note) - a triple pun?

Anyway, falsehood seems the common denominator.


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## Itisi

Since it's about composers, 'false notes' seems to make most sense.  'I think 'bum notes' would be too modern/informal for the context...


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## lentulax

'... our learned Belgian biographer was no better at judging news than stews.'[(from 'Dicky news in the land of stews'.)

('Dicky' - dubious, unreliable; dicky-'bird' ). Oh well, apologies to all! Forget flagellation - paronomasia is the English vice! Remember what Johnson said of Shakespeare, '"A quibble is to Shakespeare what luminous vapours are to the traveller! He follows it to all adventures; it is sure to lead him out of his way, sure to engulf him in the mire. It has some malignant power over his mind, and its fascinations are irresistible."


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## Itisi

I don't see anything in the text that suggests 'news'...


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## guillaumedemanzac

"Monsieur Fétis reported this story a little later and tried to duck out of the conflict of the duck confit. It was a messy piece of news about the stews."            

I also thought you could work into the cassoulet my favourite play on words with beans - cassoulet beans are not human beans - they taste better (unless you are a cannibal !).


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## lentulax

Itisi said:


> I don't see anything in the text that suggests 'news'.





Uncle Bob said:


> a _canard_ (fake news)



The suggestion at the end is clearly that Fetis (author of 'Biographie universelle des musiciens') got his facts wrong in his account of this episode , and was perhaps too ready to accept uncritically stories he read/was told (apparently, though I haven't read any of it myself, his work, though hugely valuable , did contain quite a few mistakes ).


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## Itisi

'canard' is not 'news' but 'newspaper/rag', and it seems that Fétis was a biographer, musicologist, composer, not a journalist, as far as I can tell...


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## Nicomon

From what I read, _canard _can also mean "fake news" Itisi - it actually seems to have preceded today's meaning of "rag". 





> Dans la langue du journalisme, on appelle _canard_ une bourde, une chose absurde présentée avec toutes les apparences de la vérité, quelquefois même appuyée de dissertations historiques ou scientifiques qui semblent de nature à écarter toute accusation de supercherie.
> Le mot _canard_ a pénétré dans le langage courant pour désigner *une fausse nouvelle*, une mystification.


  Source :  C'est un canard - Les canards célèbres


> *Un canard*
> 1. Son sens actuel : un journal.
> 2. L'origine du mot, son étymologie : le mot vient peut-être d'une vieille expression française « bailler un _canard_ à moitié » qui signifie tromper. De là, l'expression a dérivé vers « répandre un canard » qui veut dire répandre *une fausse nouvelle*. Enfin, le mot a fini par désigner la presse en elle-même (un mauvais journal puis un journal en général).  *Source* .


 That said, as I added to my initial post, I think your idea of _"false notes"_ works fine as an adapt' for this impossible pun.


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## ChiMike

I can't tell where the text came from or what its purpose is, unless it is simply to supplement Fétis with a very brief CV of Joseph Laguna. François-Joseph Fétis, a Belgian, was an important 19th century musicologist and music historian. See:

François-Joseph Fétis - Wikipedia

His magnum opus _Biographie universelle des musiciens et bibliographie générale de la musique_ (Brussels, 1833–1844 [8 vols.] can now be found on-line. There is no entry for Joseph Laguna, although there is a reference to him and to Beauvarlet-Charpentier in the entry for Bertrand Viguerie. There is also an entry for Jean-Jacques Beauvarlet-Charpentier, but it does not contain any reference to Languedoc or to the Lauragais, let alone to his having lived or visited there.

However, both the entry for Viguerie and that for Beauvarlet-Charpentier in Fétis contain rather caustic comments. Here they are:

Beauvarlet-Charpentier:
Biographie universelle des musiciens et bibliographie générale de la musique

Après la mort d’Armand-Louis Couperin, Charpentier fut considéré généralement comme le plus habile organiste français; pourtant on ne trouve point dans ses ouvrages de quoi justifier cette réputation.

NB: on ne trouve point !

Viguerie, who became a composer and a music publisher, wrote a series of piano pieces called L'art de toucher au piano-forte. Here's what Fétis had to say about it:

Biographie universelle des musiciens et bibliographie générale de la musique

Il est peu d’ouvrages plus médiocres ou d’une utilité plus contestable que cette prétendue méthode; il en est peu cependant qui aient obtenus plus de succès et dont on ait fait un plus grand nombre d’éditions. *Les professeurs inhabiles, qui se trouvaient autrefois dans la plupart des villes de France,* ont seuls fait ce succès honteux qui s’est arrêté depuis les derniers progrès de l’art de jouer du piano.

Speak of false notes!  I mean, one could say that the method was very bad without dragging most of the cities in France into the discussion.

So, I think "canards" is, indeed, false notes. 

Taking a leaf from jetset, you could translate: "fowl play in the land of cassoulet?"

"Misconduckt in the land of cassoulet?" might be too subtle.

I would opt for "Quackery in the land of cassoulet?"

At the end, perhaps: didn't appreciate cassoulet any more than...quackers.


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## Itisi

Thank you, Nico, for the explanation.
*
ChiMike*, I'm not clear about your translation suggestions around ducks and quacks, if you understand 'canards' as 'false notes'...


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## ain'ttranslationfun?

Brighton, you may have to make a ...drake-onian decision.


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## ChiMike

Itisi said:


> Thank you, Nico, for the explanation.
> *
> ChiMike*, I'm not clear about your translation suggestions around ducks and quacks, if you understand 'canards' as 'false notes'...



It's still a question of the play on the word "canard" (duck/false note) indicated by introducing "cassoulet".  For me, listening to the noise of a raft of ducks is not an experience in melodious birdsong, more like a cacophony of wrong notes (quacks). It a plus that quack is also a name for a charlatan, and quackery the art practiced by one. Fétis wrote a very important work, particularly because, no matter what he thought of the composer, he usually included a list of his or her published works, many of which are now rather hard to find if the composer has fallen from fame.  However, comments such as the ones I cited imply that he had greater knowledge than he could possibly have had.  (How does he know that there were inept piano instructors in most French cities and that they were the ones responsible for the increased sales or that one (as opposed to "I") could find absolutely nothing in his compositions to justify Beauvarlet's reputation). That is a form of academic quackery, a series of false notes or a series of quacks.  However, it may well go too far.


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## Itisi

I only asked about your translation suggestion, *ChiMike*, because the English word 'quack' doesn't mean 'false note'...


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## BrightonNative

Hello, CHiMike, Itisi, ATF, and Nicomon. Thanks so much for putting your heads together and for your research, ChiMike. 
The thing is that in French, when the word _canard _is used, it means all of those puns, hoax, false news, rag, false notes and is funny for that reason. Obviously that pun does not really carry over into English. I eventually ended up asking the person who sent me the text and he didn't know what it meant either, would you believe! (I don't think he wrote it and he couldn't decide.) He just said that he supposed it meant false notes but couldn't be sure. However, I and my dad gave it some more thought and in the context where one is talking about the harsh words Fétis had for Viguerie, it could quite well mean that Fétis appreciated cassoulet as little as he did _canards_, which means unfounded report; a fabricated report, a hoax. This is meant in the sense that Fétis thought Viguerie's publication was so bad and "useless" that it was a sort of hoax, a fraud (quackery!).
Thanks again, everyone


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