“la parole exportée”

Many years ago, I was lucky enough to work for a couple of French publishers, translating books on various ‘real-life’ subjects. Gardening was one such topic and I translated a few on tree-pruning, flower-planting, vegetables… One I particularly liked was on how to use colorful plants in your garden. I had just moved to a house with a garden, so I was happy to test some of the advice too!

Philadelphus, or mock orange, or seringa (the last being its French name too), was one of the easiest plant names to translate, if you overlook the fact that it has two spellings, namely ’seringa’ or ’seringat’ in French. But I remember a book on medicinal plants that was more of a challenge.

As ever, when translation is concerned, your own knowledge of the general background is invaluable, and it helped me that my parents had a passion for Botany and had exposed me to all sorts of plants and plant names from a very young age. Not a total country bumpkin, I do have links with Nature! Nowadays I run across urban people who have no idea what a lime tree (Tilia, tilleul) is. Some of them have encountered it in the herbal tea section of their supermarket, but my neighbor has been the source of nightmares around my lime tree, that no herbal tea could cure!

Challenges are said to help you grow. Probably true, at least in the case of the translation of plant names. Faced with a mass of unknown names and species and varieties, I quickly had to find a way around the problem. In the days of real dictionaries and books, no Internet available, I decided that the way to go was to find the plant’s Latin name, and search its accepted French name, bearing in mind that people in different regions may use different names, so it was necessary to sift and choose the most widespread ones. The Internet now makes this task much easier.

My Philadelphus above didn’t have the honor of being planted by me, but it’s been offering a mass of white blossom year after year. Today it’s just having a shower and I wanted to capture this moment. But most of all I wanted to give it recognition for sending a sea of deep, rich fragrance into my office.

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