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fundamental defects
The Man Who Would Teach Machines to Think

Glossary entry

English term or phrase:

burn off

French translation:

graver sur support physique / matériel

Added to glossary by Tony M
Apr 22, 2014 15:14
10 yrs ago
English term

burn off

English to French Tech/Engineering Telecom(munications)
Review and burn off any CCTV footage of the incident.
Proposed translations (French)
3 +3 copier sur support physique / matériel
4 -1 brûlez / détruisez
4 -1 brûler/éliminer
Change log

May 6, 2014 04:45: Tony M Created KOG entry

Discussion

Tony M Apr 23, 2014:
@ Anca LOL, see what you were getting at now!
Anca Florescu-Mitchell Apr 23, 2014:
@ Tony Yes, Tony, but this is not about you, but about the native French speakers :). I found their mistake funny, en toute bonne foi!
Tony M Apr 23, 2014:
@ Anca Ah, that's the whole point — my knowledge is based on many years' practical experience in the field, and tools like the 'Net, dictionaries, etc. serve merely to confirm or expand on my practical knowlegde.
This is why I rarely give Internet references — once I have given an Asker an idea, based on my own experience, I assume any serious translator is capable of going off and doing their own research to confirm (or not) to their own satisfaction the suitability of the term for their particular context.

Hear, hear, Daryo!

Though I acknowledge and own my Übergeekheit ;-)
Daryo Apr 23, 2014:
"Let alone that plain "burn" hardly made its way to the dictionaries."
yes, but...
You don't need to be an Uber-Geek to have heard of "burning" a CD or DVD; one more example showing that dictionaries and glossaries can't beat paying attention to the real life use of language.
Anca Florescu-Mitchell Apr 23, 2014:
@ Tony Well, it depends where you are standing. You are a native English speaker with a broad knowledge of engineering jargon, while most translators are native in the target language. Is it really obvious, if you had not come across "burning off" as an insider, to find it with a google search, for instance? Let alone that plain "burn" hardly made its way to the dictionnaries.
Tony M Apr 23, 2014:
@ Anca This is not "tricky" — it is perfectly standard, widely-used technical terminology. There is no grammatical or other linguistic justification for rejecting this term, just because maybe you don't happen to have come across it?
Anca Florescu-Mitchell Apr 23, 2014:
@ Tony This is too funny to be taken seriously. Of course your translation is correct, but as for the original English, valid/acceptable does not make it correct :). Technical language is a tricky issue.
Tony M Apr 23, 2014:
@ Savindan There is no 'betting' about it — this is a technical term, and that's what it means.

And there is no reason to base this on whether the writer was native EN or not — this is a perfectly valid expression in normal technical EN.
Tony M Apr 23, 2014:
@ Anca There is nothing whatsoever wrong with the term 'burn off' — it is typical technical jargon, just as 'in the olden days' we might have said 'copy off to...'. The notion of 'off' comes from the idea of transferring it off one medium onto another. We nowadays say 'to burn a CD', but originally the notion would have been 'to burn onto a CD'. The use of 'off' is common, especially where the original medium is in some way ephemral — as perhaps here, in the case of security videos, which are automatically erased on a rolling basis every (say) 24 hours; so it is clearly vitally important to copy important evidence off to some more permanent format before it gets wiped!
Igor Jaramaz Apr 23, 2014:
It does seem more logical that evidence of an incident should be reproduced rather than disposed of.

Given the additional knowledge of the author not being a native English speaker I would put my money on Francois, Anca and Tony, if I were a betting man.
Anca Florescu-Mitchell Apr 22, 2014:
@ Asker It is indeed "copier" or "graver", but to be fair with everybody, "burn off" is wrong. Just "burn"!
François Leplus Apr 22, 2014:
En français on dira copier ou graver

Proposed translations

+3
10 mins
Selected

copier sur support physique / matériel

When you 'burn' a CD / DVD, you record information onto it from your computer.

'Burning off' simply means copying the information off your computer onto a physical medium.

--------------------------------------------------
Note added at 43 minutes (2014-04-22 15:58:11 GMT)
--------------------------------------------------

I should have said that there is almost certainly an equivalent jargon term in FR — my only real concern was to get the correct interpretation of the source text; I feel sure my native French colleagues will be able to give us a better formulation in FR!

--------------------------------------------------
Note added at 1 heure (2014-04-22 16:21:41 GMT)
--------------------------------------------------

Great, as François says, the proper term in FR is probably 'graver' — depending on your surrounding context, it may or may not be necessary to render the notion of 'off'
Peer comment(s):
agree François Leplus : En effet, j'ai fait un "beau" contresens.
26 mins
Merci beaucoup, François !
agree FX Fraipont (X) : "Can I burn off to a cd a file that isn't on the hard drive of the ..." http:// au.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20120219004025AAltMfB‎
58 mins
Merci, F-X ! :-)
agree Daryo : burn a CD or DVD
22 hrs
Merci, Daryo !
Something went wrong...
4 KudoZ points awarded for this answer. Comment: "Selected automatically based on peer agreement."
-1
7 mins

brûlez / détruisez

..
Peer comment(s):
agree GILLES MEUNIER
1 min
disagree Tony M : Contresens !
2 mins
neutral FX Fraipont (X) : détruisez les preuves???
1 hr
disagree Daryo : exactly the opposite: "burn a CD / DVD" with this video recordings
22 hrs
Something went wrong...
-1
7 mins

brûler/éliminer

Examiner et brûler toutes les images CCTV de l'incident.
Peer comment(s):
disagree Tony M : Contresens !
2 mins
Something went wrong...
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