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French to English translations [PRO]
Agriculture | | French term or phrase: mitage | Dans un souci de reconquête du terroir face au mitage et de renforcement de l'agriculture, une partie des zones NB du P.O.S. a été reclassée en zone A au P.L.U. Reclassement, qui par ailleurs, vient encadrer plus strictement le bâti non agricole participant au mitage de l'espace agricole.
I know it can mean urban sprawl, but this is a rural/agricultural context. |
| Jeanne ZangKudoZ activityQuestions: 1383 ( 2 open) ( 35 without valid answers) ( 15 closed without grading) Answers: 132
| Local time: 13:50
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| | definition | Explanation:
I'll work on a translation later. This is just to point out that mitage is, as John says, "haphazard", though in a decidedly diffuse way. Think of your favourite woollen pullover that you get out of a drawer at the start of winter, only to find it's fill of moth (mite) holes. That's what it is.
And now a little plug for Roger Brunet's excellent - as much for its philosophical as geographical content - "Les Mots de la Géographie – Dictionnaire critique"; ISBN 2-11-003036-4, 135 francs in the days of francs :
mitage Éparpillement de constructions dans la campagne, notamment à proximité des agglomérations. C'est une forme de périurbanisation, qui certes a bien des défauts. Le mot évoque les trous aléatoires provoqués pars les mites dans un tissu (rac. indo-eur.: mai, idée de ronger, couper en très petits morceaux), bien qu'il s'agisse au contraire d'addition et non de soustraction; mais c'est parce que l'on évoque implicitement la consommation de l'espace et la dégradation du tissu «de qualité», qui est forcément et a priori le tissu agricole ou «naturel» ...
Chargé de connotations réprobatrices, le terme est un peu facilement employé par des personnes qui, quoique fermement attachées à la liberté et même au libéralisme, exigent par ailleurs une action forte des collectivités et de l'État pour cantonner l'urbanisation afin qu'elle ne dérange pas leur propre esthétique du paysage et leur sens des ... valeurs. On peut observer que la prolifération des friches et des boisements «en timbre-poste», résultant de mesures restrictives de la politique agricole européenne ou internationale, est une autre forme de mitage, qui ne simplifiera pa la gestion des terres voisines, et qui donne de bien curieux paysages.
To which, as a country-dweller faced with city-dwelling bureaucrats who want to keep the country in the country and, as a result, deprive country dwellers of many of the benefits of modern living combined with rurality, I can but say "hear, hear".
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Note added at 12 hrs (2009-11-23 08:01:57 GMT)
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Oops, sorry for shouting ...
It may well be a word that need paraphrasing in English, since the same phenomenon may not exist in the Anglosphere, or may not be disapproved of in quite the same way. After all, the English and American countrysides have developed in a different way to the French ...
Now, were you to use "moth holes" in such a paraphrase, you would have an - albeit Franco-European - precedent:
In the Baltic States, changes in the urban model are very moderate, showing incipient concentration around existing urban nucleus, especially at the coast. Out of these there is a tendency to DIFFUSE SPRAWL, IN FORMING MOTH HOLES, with a tendency to discontinuous urban fabric. However the proportion of the coast affected by this urban growth (specially industrial) is important even if the general trend is low, during the period 1990-2000.
http://ec.europa.eu/environment/iczm/pdf/state_coasts_europe...
I do think it needs fuller explanation. It needs words like "haphazard", "random", and "diffuse". While "encroachment", "unchecked" and "intensive" are not necessarily incorrect, they do - to my mind - imply invasion from the outside towards the centre, or "mushrooming" development in the sense of highly expansive. If one thinks of the odd mushroom across a lawn, that is closer to the mitage phenomenon.
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Note added at 12 hrs (2009-11-23 08:02:50 GMT)
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Something like "diffuse nibbling away at, from the inside". |
| Selected response from:
xxxBourth
Local time: 19:50
| Grading comment All of these answers were helpful and I wish I could have given some points to everyone, but this was the most thorough explanation. I ended up using "haphazard development" (since, as I should have noted, this involved all types of building, not just housing). And I added a translator's note about the moth hole effect.
4 KudoZ points were awarded for this answer |
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| Discussion entries: 0 |
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Automatic update in 00:
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26 mins confidence:  
2 hrs confidence:
11 hrs confidence: peer agreement (net): +1 definition
Explanation:
I'll work on a translation later. This is just to point out that mitage is, as John says, "haphazard", though in a decidedly diffuse way. Think of your favourite woollen pullover that you get out of a drawer at the start of winter, only to find it's fill of moth (mite) holes. That's what it is.
And now a little plug for Roger Brunet's excellent - as much for its philosophical as geographical content - "Les Mots de la Géographie – Dictionnaire critique"; ISBN 2-11-003036-4, 135 francs in the days of francs :
mitage Éparpillement de constructions dans la campagne, notamment à proximité des agglomérations. C'est une forme de périurbanisation, qui certes a bien des défauts. Le mot évoque les trous aléatoires provoqués pars les mites dans un tissu (rac. indo-eur.: mai, idée de ronger, couper en très petits morceaux), bien qu'il s'agisse au contraire d'addition et non de soustraction; mais c'est parce que l'on évoque implicitement la consommation de l'espace et la dégradation du tissu «de qualité», qui est forcément et a priori le tissu agricole ou «naturel» ...
Chargé de connotations réprobatrices, le terme est un peu facilement employé par des personnes qui, quoique fermement attachées à la liberté et même au libéralisme, exigent par ailleurs une action forte des collectivités et de l'État pour cantonner l'urbanisation afin qu'elle ne dérange pas leur propre esthétique du paysage et leur sens des ... valeurs. On peut observer que la prolifération des friches et des boisements «en timbre-poste», résultant de mesures restrictives de la politique agricole européenne ou internationale, est une autre forme de mitage, qui ne simplifiera pa la gestion des terres voisines, et qui donne de bien curieux paysages.
To which, as a country-dweller faced with city-dwelling bureaucrats who want to keep the country in the country and, as a result, deprive country dwellers of many of the benefits of modern living combined with rurality, I can but say "hear, hear".
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Note added at 12 hrs (2009-11-23 08:01:57 GMT)
--------------------------------------------------
Oops, sorry for shouting ...
It may well be a word that need paraphrasing in English, since the same phenomenon may not exist in the Anglosphere, or may not be disapproved of in quite the same way. After all, the English and American countrysides have developed in a different way to the French ...
Now, were you to use "moth holes" in such a paraphrase, you would have an - albeit Franco-European - precedent:
In the Baltic States, changes in the urban model are very moderate, showing incipient concentration around existing urban nucleus, especially at the coast. Out of these there is a tendency to DIFFUSE SPRAWL, IN FORMING MOTH HOLES, with a tendency to discontinuous urban fabric. However the proportion of the coast affected by this urban growth (specially industrial) is important even if the general trend is low, during the period 1990-2000.
http://ec.europa.eu/environment/iczm/pdf/state_coasts_europe...
I do think it needs fuller explanation. It needs words like "haphazard", "random", and "diffuse". While "encroachment", "unchecked" and "intensive" are not necessarily incorrect, they do - to my mind - imply invasion from the outside towards the centre, or "mushrooming" development in the sense of highly expansive. If one thinks of the odd mushroom across a lawn, that is closer to the mitage phenomenon.
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Note added at 12 hrs (2009-11-23 08:02:50 GMT)
--------------------------------------------------
Something like "diffuse nibbling away at, from the inside".
| xxxBourth
Local time: 19:50
Native speaker of:  English
PRO pts in category: 160
|
| | Grading comment | All of these answers were helpful and I wish I could have given some points to everyone, but this was the most thorough explanation. I ended up using "haphazard development" (since, as I should have noted, this involved all types of building, not just housing). And I added a translator's note about the moth hole effect. |
|
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5 hrs confidence: haphazard housing development
Explanation:
another possibility
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Note added at 1 day7 hrs (2009-11-24 02:52:54 GMT)
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In view of Bourth's very helpful definition and etymology, I think "scattered development" might be closer to the mark than "haphazard." The term seems to be gaining currency. See for example http://www.targetti.it/news/en/idcat_5/TARGETTI_FOUNDATION_/... and many other relevant ghits
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