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English to French translations [Non-PRO] Bus/Financial - Business/Commerce (general) / General speech
English term or phrase:In order words
I have found this expression, obviously meaning "in other words" in the particular context, and it was confirmed by several Google hits, to my great surprise. I have never come across it before, and I thought it must be a typo. Could somebody please let me know whether I am mistaken or not? Thank you for any help.
"Word-processing: maybe you should check. A typing error [in this case] is either automatically corrected (ordre >order); if not, only 1 word is suggested (otehr>other)."
I don't know what word-processing software you use, but in all versions of MS Word I have ever encountered, the spell-checker has always proposed a sometimes lengthy list of correction proposals — always assuming, of course, that so many options do exist for any given word!
As an example, when I type 'orer', it suggests: order ore over corer borer sorer ores.
Please note, I am talking about deliberate spell-checking, and not "autocorect spelling as you type"
While I totally agree with you about the appalling quality of many texts we recieve, I still maintain it is comapratively unlikely that a large number of different sloppy typists should make the same error in widely differing documents — especially between two words that are so unsimilar in sound. Unlike, for example, many much more obvious homonyms, which do indeed lead to common typos.
La reprise à l'infini de certaines erreurs sur internet finira bien par nous influencer (on voit plus d'une fois le "number of occurrences" d'une erreur pris pour argent comptant).
Word-processing: maybe you should check. A typing error [in this case] is either automatically corrected (ordre >order); if not, only 1 word is suggested (otehr>other). The case you mention happens with words having the same letters (ligne>linge; signe>singe). As for transcription/dictation errors, well... Sadly, I speak from experience. Should you see what I see, you would realize it's not only very plausible, but a fact of life. Many audiotypists simply type; they don't "read" what they type. Material and quality of the tape can also make a difference. And it's easy to go over such mistakes during review since your brain manages to automatically do the correction. Didn't you first read the question as "in other terms" before realizing it was "in order terms"? I did. Anyway, quoiqu'il en soit, l'idée, c'est que c'est une coquille, peu importe d'où elle vient.
A tous les trois, bien sûr que Robin a raison ("obvious") mais ça ne colle pas avec la question que j'ai posée. Je soupçonnais une erreur matérielle (contrairement à ce qu'affirme Robin), et c'est la raison pour laquelle je m'oriente vers les réponses fournies dans un premier temps par Polyglot et Tony.
That's entirely the point! If you type either 'order' or 'other', a spell-checker will ignore it, since both are valid words — the spell-checker is not smart enough to know which is the right word to use!
The problem arises when you try to type one of the words but make a typing error; in this case, a spell-checker will often propose the wrong solution.
I think a transcription / dictation error is far less plausible, partly because of the much lower likelihood of that's resulting in an identical error across wide-ranging documents from different sources (in which the only common factor might be the word-processor used); and more importantly, because the phonetic difference between the two words is really quite marked, and even a non-native listener would be hard-put to confuse them; in my own experience, I would only see certain US regional accents as possibly causing a rapprochement between these sounds.
Thank all three of you. That was what I suspected to begin with but worried about my English needing to be brushed up a little! You never know. As Tony suggested, although the Internet is very useful, be aware of blind confidence!
Merci pour votre aide, mais je pense "sadly" (dixit Tony) qu'il s'agit vraiment d'une erreur de frappe, de transcription ou de correction...je ne sais. En tout cas, j'étais très étonné par vos références Google ainsi que par les miennes.
J'utilise la version anglaise de MS-Word et ce n'est pas le correcteur qui remplace "other" par "order". En fait, il ne relève même pas l'erreur, ni en EN-UK, ni en EN-US. Même chose pour WordPerfect. Je vote plutôt pour l'erreur de transcription (discrimination auditive ou Dragon) à la dictée, mais ça importe peu.
Sadly, prevalence on the Internet is no guarantee of authenticity!
I feel sure that this is an error perptertaed by MS Word (and no doubt other!) spell checkers — an initial typo in 'other' leads to a list of proposed corrections, the first of which may well be 'order'; an inattentive typist may well validate that correction, and given that many people use the same spell-checker, many people will quite indpednently of each other make the same typo.
I just did a test: if you type 'orher' (an easy mistake for 'other', since R and T are adjacent keys, the second correction option proposed is 'order' (the first proposition is indeed 'other'); if you type 'orer' (again, a plausible error), then 'order' is the first correction offered.
In order words, the essential purpose of this part of the Community Guidelines is to allow State aid for the purpose of encouraging a firm to carry out supplementary investment to secure an improvement in environmental performance. For this, both positive financial incentives, i.e. aid, and disincentives, i.e. taxes and levies, are considered appropriate (Community Guidelines, point
En d'autres termes, le principal objectif des dispositions en question de l'encadrement communautaire est d'autoriser les aides d'État qui incitent une entreprise à réaliser un investissement supplémentaire visant à améliorer ses prestations en faveur de l'environnement. À cet égard, tant les incitations financières positives, comme les subventions, que les moyens de dissuasion, notamment les taxes et redevances, ont leur place (encadrement communautaire, point 1.2)
Merci Robin, mais j'en avais compris la signification. Ma question portait sur le fait de savoir si cette expression (que je ne connais pas) est un équivalent reconnu de "in other words" ou bien tout simplement une erreur de frappe.
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Answers
7 mins confidence: peer agreement (net): +6
in order words
En d'autres termes
Explanation: ou « en d'autres mots », je confirme!
Robin Dufaye France Local time: 12:53 Works in field Native speaker of: French