Glossary entry

French term or phrase:

alliage qui paraît sensiblement le même que

English translation:

an alloy which appears to be the same as

Added to glossary by Christopher Crockett
Mar 27, 2017 18:11
7 yrs ago
French term

alliage qui paraît sensiblement le même que

French to English Tech/Engineering Metallurgy / Casting ancient artefact
Hello!
DOC: 1907 Museum catalog of ancient Egyptian mirrors. Catalog entry.
CONTEXT: 44023. Miroir. - Bronze. - Technique. Le disque est fondu ou, plus vraisemblablement, découpé dans une feuille de bronze d'un ***alliage qui paraît sensiblement le même que*** celui du manche.
ATTEMPT: The disk is cast or, more likely, cut from a bronze sheet of an alloy which looks/seems roughly/distinctly/noticeably the same as that of the handle.
ISSUE: I can't figure out which it means here. Can someone else tell?
Thanks in advance!
Change log

Mar 27, 2017 19:09: Tony M changed "Field" from "Art/Literary" to "Tech/Engineering" , "Field (write-in)" from "ancient art" to "ancient artefact"

Apr 3, 2017 12:27: Christopher Crockett Created KOG entry

Votes to reclassify question as PRO/non-PRO:

Non-PRO (2): Tony M, Nikki Scott-Despaigne

When entering new questions, KudoZ askers are given an opportunity* to classify the difficulty of their questions as 'easy' or 'pro'. If you feel a question marked 'easy' should actually be marked 'pro', and if you have earned more than 20 KudoZ points, you can click the "Vote PRO" button to recommend that change.

How to tell the difference between "easy" and "pro" questions:

An easy question is one that any bilingual person would be able to answer correctly. (Or in the case of monolingual questions, an easy question is one that any native speaker of the language would be able to answer correctly.)

A pro question is anything else... in other words, any question that requires knowledge or skills that are specialized (even slightly).

Another way to think of the difficulty levels is this: an easy question is one that deals with everyday conversation. A pro question is anything else.

When deciding between easy and pro, err on the side of pro. Most questions will be pro.

* Note: non-member askers are not given the option of entering 'pro' questions; the only way for their questions to be classified as 'pro' is for a ProZ.com member or members to re-classify it.

Proposed translations

+1
19 hrs
Selected

an alloy which appears to be the same as

"The disk is cast or, more likely, cut from a sheet of bronze which appears to be of the same alloy as that from which the handle was made.

Though he's not had the benefit of a spectrographic analysis to prove it, I suppose that Benediti is assuming that both the mirror and the handle are from the same bronze alloy* --presumably from the color (or colour) of both the bare bronze itself (wherever/if it may be seen on both elements) and that of the patina.

Mixing up batches of bronze was probably far from an exact science, so there would inevitably be variations in the alloy content from batch to batch; and we have seen in earlier descriptions that certain alloys are more prone to "excessive" oxidation, which manifests itself as occasional spots of thicker encrustations (rather than as merely a smooth patina).

The assumption that both parts of the thing were made of bronze of identical alloy contents is, of course, a quite reasonable one --it is highly unlikely that the smith would mix up two separate batches of copper and tin to fabricate both elements of a single (compound) object.

It is not clear to me why he believes that the mirror was "cut from a sheet" (not a "leaf") rather than merely cast in a round mold (which could then be further smoothed through abrasion. Perhaps there are irregularities in the circle --trimming marks-- which suggest that this was the way the thing was formed. In any event, since he doesn't give his reasons for this assumption, the hapless translator is not obligated to speculate on what those reasons might have been.

*Tony is quite right that all bronze is an alloy; however, I believe that the use of "bronze alloy" here is not redundant, since it refers to the *specific* "alloy content" i.e., the relative amounts of copper, tin, etc. which made up the specific bronze alloy in question. (We can't use "allodial" because than word means somthing else.)

--------------------------------------------------
Note added at 19 hrs (2017-03-28 13:24:49 GMT)
--------------------------------------------------

A bit of a change for clarification purposes seems necessary:

"The disk is cast or, more likely, [it] *was* cut from a sheet of bronze which appears to be of the same alloy as that from which the handle was made."
Peer comment(s):

agree Tony M : You seem to have misunderstood my comment, which was not that anything was redundant, but simply that we need to keep both 'bronze' and 'alloy' in the 2 parts of the phrase respectively.
31 mins
Sorry, Tony; more of a Sin of Omission was intended. Btw, I agree with your addition of these questions to the "Tech/Engineering" field, but not if "Art/Literary" is excluded. These are, indeed, "Art" objects, even if they are "artefats".
Something went wrong...
3 KudoZ points awarded for this answer. Comment: "Thanks to all who gave feedback!"
+3
1 hr
French term (edited): qui paraît sensiblement le même que

that seems approximately the same as

From the use of 'paraît' is would suggest 'approximately' — 'as far as we can tell'; i.e. they probbaly haven't actually had a full scientific analysis done.

Do note that your proposed translation is headed for an error!

It is not really 'cut from a bronze sheet of an alloy...', but more accurately 'cut from a sheet of bronze' ('feuille' suggests fairly thin sheet, cf. 'foil') 'of an alloy that appears...' — bronze is inherently an alloy, and here, it seems to be substantiallly the same alloy as that used for the handle.

--------------------------------------------------
Note added at 11 heures (2017-03-28 05:14:02 GMT)
--------------------------------------------------

As Nikki has suggested, it is almost certainly close than merely 'approximately'; a possible solution here might be 'ostensibly similar to...' — where the 'ostensibly' conveys something of the sentiment of 'sensiblement'.
Peer comment(s):

agree Nikki Scott-Despaigne : fairly/quite similar to. Arguably a little more than "approximately", don't you think?
2 hrs
Thanks, Nikki! Probably, yes — I suspect it is just they are pretty sure, but don't want to stick their necks out, as it hasn't actually been analysed. In another context, I might have said 'materially similar to' or 'ostensibly similar to'
agree Daryo : 'ostensibly similar to'
11 hrs
Merci, Daryo !
agree Christopher Crockett : With a minor, knit-piquing tweeking below.
18 hrs
Thanks, Chris!
Something went wrong...
Term search
  • All of ProZ.com
  • Term search
  • Jobs
  • Forums
  • Multiple search