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Glossary entry

French term or phrase:

ne manquait pas de caractère

English translation:

was certainly eye-catching

Added to glossary by Yvonne Gallagher
Mar 28 12:47
1 mo ago
31 viewers *
French term

ne manquait pas de caractère

French to English Art/Literary Poetry & Literature
Hi everyone,

This is from a YA novel, a scene where the protagonist refers to a dress as a lady who doesn't lack character. It's an "out there" kind of dress with a lot of ornamentation etc.

Do you think keeping it as 'a woman who doesn't lack character' work? Or do you understand it differently?

Amusée, Ivoire haussa un sourcil aussi gris que sa chevelure. Ladite demoiselle ne manquait pas de caractère.

I have it as "The lady in question was not lacking in character."

Thank you for your help!
Proposed translations (English)
4 +3 was certainly eye-catching/striking
4 +2 certainly had a lot of charm
4 +1 didn't/did not lack character
4 She wasn't lacking character / or personality
4 -1 wasn't exactly short on personality/was no wallflower/shrinking violet
3 was not lacking in the personality stakes
3 Would hardly pass unnoticed
3 had no want of personality / showed no lack of verve
3 -1 was certainly vivacious
Change log

Mar 30, 2024 11:55: Yvonne Gallagher Created KOG entry

Discussion

Philippa Smith Mar 30:
@Yvonne Exactly what I was thinking - I'll give up banging my head against that brick wall. ;-) Enjoy the sunshine, I'll do the same!
Yvonne Gallagher Mar 30:
@Philippa Thanks for your support but it seems like we may as well be talking to a wall.
The sun is shining so I am going out to enjoy it!
Mpoma Mar 30:
Nope "The beauty" ... is absolutely not sufficient to convey the idea of personification, in the way the French does. The French is far more elegant and emphatic.
Philippa Smith Mar 30:
OMG: the BEAUTY is the personification, and eye-catching applies to dresses and people. Do you know what word play is???
Mpoma Mar 30:
@Philippa "The beauty in question was certainly eye-catching" is not a personification at all. A dress can be eye-catching without resorting to personification, as you know well. It's quite silly to try to argue something which is clearly not true.
Philippa Smith Mar 30:
@Mpoma "The beauty in question was certainly eye-catching" is very much a personification. But hey, let's just agree to disagree! Have a good weekend.
Mpoma Mar 30:
@Philippa Your argument is unsound. Just because you happen to think "the beauty" is a nice choice for demoiselle, this doesn't invalidate what I'm saying: that it is sad to fail to sustain the personification all the way into "ne manquait pas de caractère" as the French does.
Philippa Smith Mar 30:
@Mpoma Oh dear indeed. I'm afraid I don't think you've grasped the nuances of using "The beauty" as Yvonne suggested: it's a lovely way to get round the clunkiness of using something literal for "demoiselle", a very nice play on words ("beauty" as a woman and as a lovely object), fits the tone and context, and does absolutely "honour the poetic imagination."
Mpoma Mar 30:
Oh dear You haven't grasped the problem with your suggestion: it does not continue this idea of personification in the way "ne manquait pas de caractère" does in the French. The French quite deliberately and pointedly says "we're playing along with this idea that the dress is seen as a person", but your suggestion simply doesn't do that. So it's a bit sad because it fails to honour the poetic imagination.
Yvonne Gallagher Mar 30:
@Mpoma Thanks for rereading the text and for having the grace to admit you were wrong. Pity your "agree" only lasted a few minutes though and that you then accuse me of omitting "a facet".
There is clear evidence, first in my Dbox posts, and then in my answer, that, unlike some others, I was aware of the personification from the start. I asked for more text BEFORE any answers were posted, didn't get it, so looked it up myself to read. (Very simple to do: just post the quoted text in Google and hey presto, if it's in Google Books, it will pop up. I thought everyone knew how to do that!) I posted an answer only AFTER reading the text and confirming the personification.
The personification is made very clear, multiple times, in the text but I simply didn't like "The young lady/She..." or "The dress in question..." in this particular sentence in English so looked for another solution and think I came up with a great one, even if I do say so myself!
Mpoma Mar 29:
Yvonne's got it... I recommend anyone to read carefully the whole two pages at the link in Anastasia's answer. It is indeed about a dress. However, this term "demoiselle" can never mean "dress" in French, so the tailor is personifying the dress. And in this little phrase the narrative voice, through the eyes of Ivoire, takes up this personification. If we simply say "it was charming" or "it was eye-catching", we fail to reflect that personification-and-repartee, which both the dialogue and the narrative voice sustain emphatically throughout this whole passage.

For that reason, although initially my suggestion was based on a misreading, I think it does in fact work. We have to lend personality to the dress in our chosen expression, I think. We shouldn't be too heavy-handed, but equally we shouldn't just say "charming". A thing can be charming: it has to be clearer than that to do justice to the narrative imagination, IMHO.
Philippa Smith Mar 28:
Ive read the context! If you go to Anastasia‘a answer, she’s kindly posted the link to the book. It’s very easy to open and quickly read the bit in question - and quite fun! 😆
philgoddard Mar 28:
Oh, OK Perhaps the asker could explain the context - 'refers to a dress as a lady' doesn't tell us much.
Philippa Smith Mar 28:
@Phil To be honest I don't think it is (having read a few pages), it's more about magical realism and the clothes coming to life, it's in the fantasy genre. But I could be wrong - a couple of pages doesn't tell everything about the book!
philgoddard Mar 28:
If I've understood the question correctly, they're saying if this dress were a woman, this is what she'd be like.
Philippa Smith Mar 28:
Yes, great solution! :-)
Yvonne Gallagher Mar 28:
@Philippa The beauty in question....? covers all possibilities
Philippa Smith Mar 28:
@Yvonne Couldn't resist and I read it too - so yes, Ivoire is young (and some sort of grey character I think!) while the demoiselle is definitely the dress - referred to demoiselle several times. I'll suggest another translation possibility I think fits with the text.
Yvonne Gallagher Mar 28:
@Philippa I read a bit of the story. No time now to read more and still not sure if Ivoire is a person or not but she is described as a young girl, though the story seems a bit like fantasyland.
ormiston Mar 28:
Sounds like It 'made a real statement' (if it's really a dress the lady is wryly commenting on)
Philippa Smith Mar 28:
You'd say from this sentence that Ivoire is an older woman (grey hair + eyebrow) commenting on a sassy younger woman...
Yvonne Gallagher Mar 28:
@Asker Is "Ivoire" a girl or the dress being personified?
Philippa Smith Mar 28:
Agree with Yvonne - are you sure the "demoiselle" is a dress? Could you paste the whole paragraph maybe? :-)
Yvonne Gallagher Mar 28:
@Asker if speaking of the dress I'm not sure that "The lady in question" is OK? "not lacking in character." seems OK
Could you give a few more sentences?

Proposed translations

+3
2 hrs
Selected

was certainly eye-catching/striking

As said earlier in Dbox, not sure if this should be "The young lady in question..." She" or "The dress in question..."

but in English we often use the antonym in descriptions. So, rather than saying something "has no character" or "is certainly lacking in character" we say the opposite, as Ormiston suggested doing in Dbox "made a statement"

In this case we could say the dress/young lady (whichever fits) was (certainly/really)
SHOWY or DRAMATIC or FLAMBOYANT or ELABORATE or STUNNING etc.


--------------------------------------------------
Note added at 3 hrs (2024-03-28 15:52:32 GMT)
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another though that would cover both girl/lady and dress is just tio sat

THE BEAUTY IN QUESTION...

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Note added at 3 hrs (2024-03-28 15:53:02 GMT)
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oops, typo
just to say

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Note added at 1 day 22 hrs (2024-03-30 11:13:40 GMT) Post-grading
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Glad to have helped.
And yes, I was happy to come up with that solution after quite a bit of time and mental acrobatics!

--------------------------------------------------
Note added at 1 day 23 hrs (2024-03-30 11:54:42 GMT) Post-grading
--------------------------------------------------

Full sentence

The beauty in question was certainly eye-catching
Peer comment(s):
agree Philippa Smith : Ha, we came to a very similar conclusion! I like "the beauty" as a solution.
7 mins
Many thanks:-) And you also emphasise the positive aspect!
agree Michele Fauble
24 mins
Many thanks:-)
agree Yolanda Broad
4 hrs
Many thanks:-)
neutral philgoddard : I think the French is using deliberate understatement for effect, and it seems a shame to lose that by turning a negative into a positive.
4 hrs
Clearly you haven't read the text
neutral Mpoma : View changed: having read it more thoroughly I agree, it is about a dress. And not ironic. So your solution works. But the thing is, this is a deliberate *personification*, by the tailor and taken up by the narrator. Your suggestion omits that facet.
22 hrs
it's about a DRESS and nothing ironic about it//I omitted nothing if you read my Dbox posts and answer carefully. The personification is already clear in the paragraph. I thought "the dress/young lady..." didn't work in this sentence
Something went wrong...
4 KudoZ points awarded for this answer. Comment: "Fantastic solution! Really like 'the beauty in question' - thank you"
+1
1 hr

didn't/did not lack character

Well, it is in the past (imperfect) tense.

--------------------------------------------------
Note added at   1 godz. (2024-03-28 13:54:00 GMT)
--------------------------------------------------

https://ell.stackexchange.com/questions/220570/someone-who-l...

You can certainly say that someone "lacks character," but it is usually different from "lacking personality."

Personality is what we present to the world the way we interact with other people, but character is more of an internal trait, what makes them who they are at a fundamental moral level.

"He lacks character," implies that he is spineless, "wishy-washy", or weak internally.

Even someone who lacks "personality" and is boring to the point people don't want to be around him doesn't necessarily lack "character" if he stands up to a bully, or refuses to back down when he is morally right, etc.
Peer comment(s):
agree Lara Barnett
4 hrs
neutral philgoddard : I think this sounds a bit stiff and Victorian - it's a YA novel.
6 hrs
neutral Mpoma : I think Phil may not have read the text: the style is deliberately archaic. But in the context I don't think this works because it's too flat. The use of "demoiselle" is a personification, and this doesn't do justice to that.
1 day 5 mins
Something went wrong...
1 hr
French term (edited): Elle ne manquait pas de caractère

She wasn't lacking character / or personality

https://dictionnaire.lerobert.com/definition/manquer-de-cara...
https://dictionnaire.lerobert.com/definition/manquer-de-pers...
https://citations.ouest-france.fr/citation-serge-mirjean/imp...
Un imprimeur est un homme qui ne manque pas de caractère et qui cherche à faire bonne impression.
Voir sur https://citations.ouest-france.fr/citation-serge-mirjean/imp...
Comme dans la phrase ci-dessus, je crois que c'est ce que l'auteur veut dire dans votre cas sur le caractère de la robe de la fille, dont fondamentalement la robe représente le caractère de la fille, tout comme le contraire. La robe et la fille sont une seule et même chose, elles doivent avoir le même caractère, ou bien la personnalité ou le style.
https://ell.stackexchange.com/questions/220570/someone-who-l...

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Note added at 48 λεπτά (2024-03-28 13:35:25 GMT)
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https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/characterless

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Note added at 49 λεπτά (2024-03-28 13:37:12 GMT)
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Et aussi:
https://forum.wordreference.com/threads/lack-of-character-me...

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Note added at 53 λεπτά (2024-03-28 13:41:03 GMT)
--------------------------------------------------

***Et c'est le livre auquel nous faisons référence.
https://www.calameo.com/books/007295780e7339e591f43


Something went wrong...
+2
3 hrs

certainly had a lot of charm

There are so many ways you could go with this, and it depends on the voice you're using for the rest of the text (if you're translating it). I'm suggesting this based on reading the entire page: the dress ("the young lady in question") is shown as moving with dignity, so I felt it might be better to try something other than "not lacking in character" (which is of course a perfectly good expression).
Peer comment(s):
agree Yvonne Gallagher : also works//great minds and all that :-)
3 mins
Thanks Yvonne - we also both went with "certainly"...
agree Anastasia Kalantzi
6 hrs
Thanks Anastasia!
Something went wrong...
-1
7 hrs

wasn't exactly short on personality/was no wallflower/shrinking violet

Here's a couple of more colourful suggestions that maybe suit the tone of a young adult novel.
Peer comment(s):
neutral Philippa Smith : These are all nice options Phil, but having read a couple of pages of the book I'm not sure they go with the feel of the dress (dignified movement and beautifully crafted details)...
18 mins
I was just going by the asker's description, 'out there', which I take to mean wacky and over the top.
disagree Mpoma : Doesn't fit with the rather deliberately archaic language.
17 hrs
neutral Yvonne Gallagher : absolutely not. I suggest you read the text
18 hrs
Something went wrong...
9 hrs

was not lacking in the personality stakes

Whether or not the asker is translating into the latter's native language, the first part of the question is ambiguously formulated and may refer to the dress rather than la demoiselle as the protagonist = main or lead character her good self.
Example sentence:

used to say how much of a particular quality a person has, as if they were in a competition in which some people are more successful than others: John doesn’t do too well in the personality stakes.

Reference:

http://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/in+the+personality+stakes

Peer comment(s):
neutral Yvonne Gallagher : read the text
15 hrs
Something went wrong...
10 hrs

Would hardly pass unnoticed

My stab at it!
Peer comment(s):
neutral Yvonne Gallagher : your original stab was better
14 hrs
Something went wrong...
-1
1 day 1 hr

was certainly vivacious

Having read the text at calameo.com, I think there's a certain disdain here, on the part of the older woman, disguising itself as amused irony.

The register of the text should also be noted. Supposedly a "young adult's" novel, it's rather stilted by English standards. Somebody said Anastasia's idea is "too Victorian". But in fact the text seems to be deliberating adopting florid 19th century language.

--------------------------------------------------
Note added at 1 jour 1 heure (2024-03-29 14:02:44 GMT)
--------------------------------------------------

* deliberately. Gah, no editing.

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Note added at 1 jour 4 heures (2024-03-29 17:10:58 GMT)
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Having read the whole passage properly, Yvonne is right, this term "demoiselle" is used by the tailor to refer to the dress.

There is also nothing ironic about it.

But I think, oddly, that my suggestion still works: the point being that this is a personification by the tailor, which is taken up by the narrator (through the perception of Ivoire). So to say something straightforward like "it was a striking dress" actually deprives the sentence of some of its emotional richness...
Peer comment(s):
disagree Yvonne Gallagher : See Dbox. I never suggested "it was a striking dress". You offer no suggestion for the full sentence? So no, this doesn't work. And "vivacious" is hardly an adjective to describe a dress, no matter how personified it is
37 mins
Having reread it a bit more carefully, you're right. But oddly I still think my suggestion works.
Something went wrong...
4 days

had no want of personality / showed no lack of verve

I think your translation works well.

An alternative, for what it's worth: "The lady in question had no want of personality" - since the notion of "avoir du caractère" in French is a little closer to "personality" than "character".
Or another suggestion, depending on what else is known about the lady: "The said lady showed no lack of verve".

Sounds like a lovely project you're on. All the best!

VS

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