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Glossary entry

French term or phrase:

Les parlotes, les plaidoiries, la musique de l’éloquence exaspèrent

English translation:

Chit-chat, arguments for and against, the music of eloquence exasperated

Added to glossary by Conor McAuley
May 5, 2022 15:34
2 yrs ago
27 viewers *
French term

Les parlotes, les plaidoiries, la musique de l’éloquence exaspèrent...

FVA French to English Art/Literary Photography/Imaging (& Graphic Arts)
I am translating a text from French into Chinese.
The text was written by photographer Robert Doisneau talking about his friend Henri Cartier-bresson in 1989.

C’est un bon juge, Henri, mais quel mauvais diplomate.
Les parlotes, les plaidoiries, la musique de l’éloquence exaspèrent ce champion de la décision fulgurante.
C’est là son domaine.
Tous ressorts bandés. Le mot ne devrait pas lui déplaire.

I am not sure about what this sentence "les parlotes, les plaidoiries, la musique de l’éloquence exaspèrent ce champion de la décision fulgurante" means exactly, especially this part "les parlotes, les plaidoiries, la musique de l’éloquence exaspèrent...".

Could anyone help to explain it for me？Thank you in advance!
Proposed translations (English)
3 +2 Chitchat, arguments for and against, the music of eloquence exasperated him
3 gossip, causes, rhetoric exasperated him
Change log

May 7, 2022 14:02: Conor McAuley Created KOG entry

Discussion

Conor McAuley May 6, 2022:
Of course... ...search with "music of eloquence" in inverted commas.
Conor McAuley May 6, 2022:
Google, 133,000 https://www.google.co.uk/search?q="music of eloquence"&ei=rz...

As I've said, I hate to resort to just stats, but this term, "the music of eloquence" also sings to me, it gives you a flavour of the French without being some kind of awful calque like "lune de miel"!

But taste is personal, I understand that, everybody's entitled to have their own taste in these matters.
chris collister May 6, 2022:
elOquence...!
chris collister May 6, 2022:
Oddly, I don't get any hits, either in FR or EN, for "the music of elequence". Are we using different search engines?? As for Turgenev, this is, of course, a translation from Russian into English.
SafeTex May 6, 2022:
@ all A lot of hits for "the music of eloquence" are about a character called Rudin in a book by Ivan Sergeyevich Turgenev I don't profess to know either the author or the character but we can read about the latter:

"Rudin was the master of almost the greatest secret—the music of eloquence. He knew how in striking one chord of the heart to set all the others vaguely quivering and resounding. Many of his listeners, perhaps, did not understand very precisely what his eloquence was about; but their bosoms heaved, it seemed as though veils were lifted before their eyes, something radiant, glorious, seemed shimmering in the distance."

I very much liked the term "silver-tongued" used in this discussion by lingyanlv (the asker)

For the question, a possible answer could now be:

"THOSE WHO GOSSIPED, THOSE WITH AN AXE TO GRIND AND THOSE WITH A SILVER-TONGUE EXASPERATED HIM"
Conor McAuley May 6, 2022:
Chris, I think that there's nothing wrong with "going literal" when it works, which I instinctively felt it did here...I hate to resort to bare numbers, but just search the internet for "the music of eloquence", there are gazillions of matches.
lingyanlv (asker) May 6, 2022:
Thank you for your help! You are right. I think it's near "silver-tongued", i.e. empty rhetoric.
chris collister May 5, 2022:
Since "the decisive moment" is ineluctibly associated with HCB himself, this would surely apply to the "décision fulgurante". The "music of eloquence" is a bit too literal for my taste, but you could consider, inter alia, "purple prose", "verbiage", "verbosity", "wordiness", "silver-tongued" or any other expression (in Chinese) that applies to where the sound of the commentary is possibly more important than its content. We have probably all seen Powerpoint presentations where the flashing lights and animations are used as a smokescreen for a lack of substance.

Proposed translations

+2
8 mins
Selected

Chitchat, arguments for and against, the music of eloquence exasperated him

More details to follow.

Have you considered that a translation of your text, into English at least, might already exist?

--------------------------------------------------
Note added at 16 mins (2022-05-05 15:50:31 GMT)
--------------------------------------------------

"parlotes":

Translation:

https://www.wordreference.com/fren/parlote

Larousse definition:

https://www.larousse.fr/dictionnaires/francais/parlotte/5825...


"plaidoiries": I see this word in a legal light, but "pleadings" would sound unnatural in the context.


And finally:

"décision fulgurante": swift decisions

So: "...this champion of swift decisions"


Last note: I actually prefer "chit-chat" like that, with a dash.





--------------------------------------------------
Note added at 20 hrs (2022-05-06 12:17:54 GMT)
--------------------------------------------------

To Asker: yeah, same here, no matches for the text. But if you're translating say, a certain book, that might have been translated into English.

Not EVERYTHING is on Google Books.
Note from asker:
Thank you for your help! I tried to google the English version of the text before I posted it but failed. After reading answers, now I think I've got what he meant to say. It's still talking about an episode Doisneau described above that Cartier-Bresson fighted with a colleague.
Peer comment(s):
agree philgoddard : I think terms like chitchat should always be written as one word unless they look weird.
1 hr
Thank you for the agree Phil! Chitchat, well, "Divided by a common language"! For me, it always has to be "co-operate", "hold-up", for reasons of pronunciation following the spelling. That said, I think that you folks are so inventive with language.
agree Anastasia Kalantzi
1 day 1 hr
Thanks Anastasia!
Something went wrong...
4 KudoZ points awarded for this answer. Comment: "First validated answer (validated by peer agreement)"
2 hrs

gossip, causes, rhetoric exasperated him

This would be my attempt in view of the overall context.
"Gossip" is closer to what "parlotes" means
"Rhetoric" might be the most surprising but see my reference for this. I don't think that the writer was really speaking of eloquent music but more of how arguments sounded to the ear.

We need to make sense of the character in question and I suspect the writer saw some link between the three things he did not like.
Reference:

https://hautsdefrance.sortir.eu/evenements/eloquence-de-la-musique-musique-de-l-eloquence

Note from asker:
Thank you for your analysis! It helps. I now got what Doisneau wanted to say. I think rhetoric is quite good. It's exactly the rhetoric in the expression "empty rhetoric".
Something went wrong...
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