Gatineau Police Services are continuing their investigation into the case of an armed assault committed last April 5 outside a bar on the Promenade du Portage. Investigators now possess information about potential suspects, thanks to numerous details collected after the encounter from several persons in the days following the event.
Recall that three men had been surrounded by ten or so individuals outside a Promenade du Portage bar as they were leaving to return to their vehicle, and were the victims of an assault. A few minutes later, trying to leave the location, the three victims were spotted again and pursued by one of the assailants with a machete.
Release in French can be found here.
Hmm. The odds of me owing somebody money may have gone up bit. Background here. Although my French isn't really good enough to determine whether or not the actual release is still talking in terms of an "alleged assault". It still speaks of "potential" suspects (l’information sur des suspects potentiels), though.
24 comments:
Does that level of fluency qualify you for the Supremes under the new law? ;)
Here's a better translation. You're welcome.
Gatineau Police Services are continuing their investigation into the case of an armed assault committed last April 5 outside a bar on the Promenade du Portage. Investigators now possess information about potential suspects, thanks to numerous details collected after the encounter from several persons in the days following the event.
Recall that three men had been surrounded by ten or so individuals outside a Promenade du Portage bar as they were leaving to return to their vehicle, and were the victims of an assault. A few minutes later, trying to leave the location, the three victims were spotted again and pursued by one of the assailants with a machete.
I see this as a temporizing "progress is being made" memo. You rightly homed in on the word "potential."
The police don't at all sound disbelieving of the basic story.
True, but the devil's in the details (the machete too).
The report does confirm the presence of the third man. Cue the zither music.
There's no talk of an 'alleged' assault and Dawg's translation is a million times better.
"the file of made ways in fact armed last on April"
that's just brutal.
But really it just means that the police is working based on the assumption that the victim's account is true. Not surprising, and not determinative one way or the other.
I tend to believe that there is likely a large part of truth which is then exaggerated by alcohol and adrenaline.
So I dont know in what circumstances you owe $ or not but even if charges are laid it doesnt mean that the victim's story is 100% true - just that the police believed it and they have some evidence (perhaps just the victim's testimony) against a suspect.
I've subbed in Dawg's translation.
that's just brutal.
I'm sure that didn't come from BCL; he knows his French is non-existent enough to not even attempt it. He probably ran it through Babel, which translates "voies de fait" as "made ways."
Although my French isn't really good enough to determine whether or not the actual release is still talking in terms of an "alleged assault"
It is. In French when you report events you yourself haven't witnessed, you use tense/mood to indicate that certain facts are yet to be determined, as in:
"Rappelons que trois hommes avaient été encerclés..." which properly translates to "were said to have been surrounded..." If the facts had been determined, they might have written "ont été encerclés..." although police-speak tends to be ambiguous at the best of times.
He probably ran it through Babel, which translates "voies de fait" as "made ways."
Yes I know. No computer program will ever replace a good translator IMHO.
No computer program will ever replace a good translator IMHO.
I don't know; I'm sure we're well on our way to replacing any activity that requires genuine human intelligence with the purely mechanical, to the point where (as I've complained before) everything sophisticated is now merely technique.
It's gotten so bad that the paradigm is no longer "how do we get a computer to think like a real person?" but "how do we get real people to think like computers?"
TiGuy:
You're Maclean's Regular right?
*shh* I don't want Paul Wells deleting my comments again just because he can.
*shh* I don't want Paul Wells deleting my comments again just because he can.
Haha, ok.
Now, admit you're "Viva_Vivian"...
Now, admit you're "Viva_Vivian"...
Actually no. But I can see why you would think that (coherent, articulate, ...)
I do sometimes comment under 'Horatio Dunesbury', at the NP amongst other places.
I dont comment at Macleans. You need to register and stuff and i just never got around to it.
You need to register and stuff and i just never got around to it.
You don't have to.
I'm not recommending it. It's a pain in the ass usually, but the bloggers there, fairly well-known/respected journalists in their own right, have been known to participate in their own discussions (although that's not as apparent as it used to be since O'Malley left), which I think is admirable. I have a lot of respect for journalists who think their own readers are worth engaging.
I never comment anywhere where the blogger/author gives the impression they never read the comments nor care what their readers think. The exception being Steyn of course (who I'm sure would never stoop so low as to address the riff-raff who read his columns). I just love mocking his pretentious, sycophantic and bilious fans. But then, I never really read his columns. At most, I skim them. I usually start retching at the first lurid fabrication or squalid lie.
Dr Dawg and I discussed the original version in French and the verb tense.
Rappelons que trois hommes avaient été encerclés par une dizaine d’individus ... That declination is past imperfect and there is no ambiguity there.
Had it been - Rappelons que trois hommes auraient été encerclés par une dizaine d’individus ... that would have been more open to interpretation, as in:
'Note the three men were said to have been surrounded by ten or so persons ...'
No computer program will ever replace a good translator IMHO.
Reminds me of the story of the early days of computer translation, which at the time (because of the Cold War) had concentrated on the translation of Russian. In order to test the program, large batches of canonical texts were tested, including the New Testament. According to the story the verse "The Spirit is willing but the Flesh is weak" came through as "the vodka is good but the meat is lousy".
That declination is past imperfect and there is no ambiguity there.
*sigh* Yes, there is.
Indicatif plus-que-parfait
Je cite:
"Comme l’imparfait, il a des emplois temporels qui situent le procès dans le passé (sauf dans le cas de la concordance des temps) et des emplois modaux qui expriment un décalage avec la réalité (hypothèse, situation imaginaire) ou une attitude particulière vis-à-vis de l'interlocuteur (usage hypocoristique, atténuation polie)"
All verbs used in the report of the event are in the plus-que-parfait de l'indicatif and none in the imperfect or in the passé composé so I assumed the usage was primarily modal not temporal to indicate anteriority unambiguously. There seems to be no other reason to do that otherwise.
However, I probably would have used the journalistic conditionnel passé myself especially if I knew une maîtresse d'école was lurking about.
That all seems somewhat refined for a police report, Tiggy (if I might be hypocoristic for a moment).
...reminds me of why I *detest* writing anything in French by committee. ;)
Keep in mind the Gatineau Police are not linguists and university level courses in journalism or French literature are not requisites for graduation at the Police Academy, a two year CEGEP level course. Their press releases are not about to receive any literary awards, and the discussion in proper use of verb tense would probably have their heads spinning.
Whatever competence they hold in the use of grammar would have been obtained largely at the primary school level, and the simplest interpretation as to the intent of the language and verb usage in the communication is probably the correct one. I would agree they are proceeding in their investigation based on the assumption the allegations are founded, or alternatively that their interviewing of other witnesses present gives them sufficient grounds to accept the complaint and proceed in such manner.
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