Just a beginning...
Dec. 29th, 2003 11:21 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
camwynI'm going to take the John Lyon thing I just posted and work it into a proper fic. In the meantime, could someone please look over these *counts hastily* four paragraphs and correct my one line of lousy French?
If one gets off the bus in Ottawa at the Laurier stop near the University campus and walks past Tabaret and Hagen Halls, there is a spot at 133-135 Séraphin-Marion which may attract one's attention. At least, if one is a wizard. Given that the building looks to be little more than the University of Ottawa's Academic Hall, most Muggles don't give it a second glance. It's been there as long as anyone can remember. It had a museum in it once. It's a playhouse now. There's nothing much to think of it, really, unless one is out for a play or intending to visit the Theatre Department's offices.
It's that 'once' that ought to catch the attention. Museums are funny places, all displays and exhibits and carefully arranged cases. Visitors never quite realise how much of the building they're in isn't actually visible- how much is stored in the basement, or behind the doors that say AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY / AUTORISÉ LE PERSONNEL SEULEMENT. Even the ones who do chalk it up to the museum's collection being bigger than they can show all at once, and leave it at that.
In the back of the first floor of 133-135 Séraphin-Marion, there is a staircase that dates to the old museum days. It's locked and fitted with an alarm, considered a defunct fire safety door now, but in the old days. . . well. You passed through the Zoology collection and into Ornithology, took a right turn at the Great Auk and headed down past the Marine Birds of the Northwest Territories, and waited for passers-by to find somewhere else that they wanted to be. When they'd gone, you placed your hand just on the center of the door and murmured the word; there'd be a click if you got it just right. And when you opened that door, the staircase on the other side didn't lead to the same place it did before.
That's the way into the offices of the Canadian Animagus Registration Board. There are other ways, but that one's simplest, and it works the same way today.
If one gets off the bus in Ottawa at the Laurier stop near the University campus and walks past Tabaret and Hagen Halls, there is a spot at 133-135 Séraphin-Marion which may attract one's attention. At least, if one is a wizard. Given that the building looks to be little more than the University of Ottawa's Academic Hall, most Muggles don't give it a second glance. It's been there as long as anyone can remember. It had a museum in it once. It's a playhouse now. There's nothing much to think of it, really, unless one is out for a play or intending to visit the Theatre Department's offices.
It's that 'once' that ought to catch the attention. Museums are funny places, all displays and exhibits and carefully arranged cases. Visitors never quite realise how much of the building they're in isn't actually visible- how much is stored in the basement, or behind the doors that say AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY / AUTORISÉ LE PERSONNEL SEULEMENT. Even the ones who do chalk it up to the museum's collection being bigger than they can show all at once, and leave it at that.
In the back of the first floor of 133-135 Séraphin-Marion, there is a staircase that dates to the old museum days. It's locked and fitted with an alarm, considered a defunct fire safety door now, but in the old days. . . well. You passed through the Zoology collection and into Ornithology, took a right turn at the Great Auk and headed down past the Marine Birds of the Northwest Territories, and waited for passers-by to find somewhere else that they wanted to be. When they'd gone, you placed your hand just on the center of the door and murmured the word; there'd be a click if you got it just right. And when you opened that door, the staircase on the other side didn't lead to the same place it did before.
That's the way into the offices of the Canadian Animagus Registration Board. There are other ways, but that one's simplest, and it works the same way today.
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no subject
Date: 2003-12-29 12:28 pm (UTC)However... if one is exerting the effort to use the formal tone, one would not, in my estimation, use a contraction. Might this one recommend "one is" rather than "one's" in the last line of the first paragraph?
no subject
Date: 2003-12-29 12:36 pm (UTC)The French is straight-up Babelfish French, and so may translate word-for-word, but when one brings two or more words together and places them at the Fish's mercy... bah.
word order
Date: 2003-12-29 01:16 pm (UTC)In the meantime I've sent an e-mail re the entire phrase to a former French teacher, so I'll let you know if I get anything useful in response.
Re: word order
Date: 2003-12-29 01:18 pm (UTC)Italian, now, that I could handle. French? No.
no subject
Date: 2003-12-29 03:08 pm (UTC)1) Like other Romantic languages, articles and adjectives need to be declined to match the noun in number and gender.
2) Yep, the word order is incorrect. In French, the adjective comes after the noun (also, the direct object comes before the verb, but I digress).
3) It's not personnel. I think personnes might be more the right thing. Babelfish takes words it doesn't grok and just puts them in straight (bleargh).
Sooooo more like les personnes authorisés seulement: plural article, correct nouns, plural adjectivised verb, but hey, lookit that adverb. 8-)
However, this is probably still a "Franglais" construction. Hold out for the French teacher... just hadda prove I still had a few French-speaking neurons.
-- Lorrie
from the French teacher
Date: 2003-12-29 05:48 pm (UTC)Personnel authorise ( accent aigu on last e -- don't know how to do that on my American computer) is the translation of "authorized personnel." That might be sufficient. Entree (accent aigu on next to last e) reservee (accent aigu on next to last e) a (accent grave [ ` ] over the a ) personnel authorise.
Entree reservee a personnel authorize.
French Canadians have some differences in vocabulary. Certainly their spoken accent is very different. I am not familiar with Canadian specific vocabulary.
another source
Date: 2003-12-29 05:50 pm (UTC)Re: another source
Date: 2003-12-29 08:36 pm (UTC)Re: another source
Date: 2003-12-30 06:49 am (UTC)Re: another source
Date: 2003-12-30 06:56 am (UTC)Worst comes to worst, I'm going up to Niagara Falls (the Canadian side- the American side's a pit) on Saturday, along with
Re: from the French teacher
Date: 2003-12-30 12:32 pm (UTC)Entree reservee au personnel authorise
with accented "e"s as before.
Re: another source
Date: 2004-01-02 10:48 am (UTC)We just returned from Montreal.
I asked a friend of mine, who grew up in France.
He writes:
Museum Staff Only - Reserve au personnel du musee
Authorized Personnel Only - Reserve au personnel autorise
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Notes (since I'm still learning html & don't know how to make it do accents): "reserve" should have aigu accents on the first and last "e"s, "musee" on the first "e", and "autorise" on its "e".
Re: another source
Date: 2004-01-03 08:17 pm (UTC)Such a museum door sign in French would probably say "Interdit au public" (Forbidden to the public), particularly in France, or else "Employes seulement" (Employees Only), which I think is more likely in French Canada. Possibly "Personnel autorise seulement", which I think is influenced by the English.
Accent notes: aigu on the second "e" in "employes" and on the "e" in "autorise"
Re: another source
Date: 2004-01-05 06:56 pm (UTC)Thinking about it, I would also suggest (just to confuse the issue:-)
"Reserve au personnel" or "reserve aux employes"
(Reserved for personnel or Reserved for Employees).
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Accent notes: aigu on both "e"s in "reserve" (in both phrases) and on the second "e" in "employes" (in the second phrase)
Re: another source
Date: 2004-01-16 11:40 am (UTC)