“O’Malley’s Bar” is particularly effective. It’s been a good year since I was last in a grumpy enough mood to listen to it. Maeglin, Cave is rather horrifying. Especially Murder Ballads which is all, well, murder ballads. I cannot honestly recommend it to anybody. But it’s awfully well done.
Yeah, I love the line “with an ashtray as big as a fucking really big brick…”
So, are we all in agreement that Paxton should have included a glossary? And that since he doesn’t, matt_mcl should provide the necessary translation? 
Affirmative.
I think I will like Nick Cave. My new favorite album, Torment and Toreros by Marc Almond and the Mambas, has been favorably compared to the darkest of Nick Cave’s work.
Or…
It’s great stuff.
MR
I thought I was always reasonable…Is there something someone is not telling me?
OH GOD! I’LL EXTRICATE MYSELF FROM THE CESSPOOL I THREW MYSELF INTO! AAAAARRRRRGGGGGHHHH! :eek:
Ooops. Lost the “NEVER” from that one.
Its ok…really…relax…
Back to the subject of the thread, if you please.
I’m with you, Sua. Unless the foreign language phrase in well known (blitzkrieg, sauté), or has no English equivalent with the same precise meaning (Voie Sacree, Weltungshau, Zeitgeist), then the gratuitous use of foreign language words and phrases is just pretentious. God forbid that an academic should be accused of pretension. For example, Alistair Horne managed to fight his way through the Siege of Paris, the Battle of Verdun and the Fall of France, all distinctly French-German events, while being intelligible to an English speaking reader. Maybe if the author were writing for an audience with special knowledge, as in a learned journal, it would be different. When writing for a general reader the over use of unnecessary foreign language is just a royal pain in the neck.
If you want real trouble, try reading the standard works on the Northern Renaissance by the German art historian (Kunstgeschichte), Erwin Panofsky. It is like wading through knee deep liquid mud.
True the translations are frequently poor. However I am not fluent in Latin, just passing. When translations of passages are included with the passage, I frequently pick a nuance I might have missed. It also allows me to continue without needing to refer to a Latin dictionary, unless I choose to. In addition Latin was not a requirement for medievalists at my school (The University of Utah). It may be elsewhere. Of course it was strongly recommended. However given the incredibly strong Arabic program, many medievalists chose Arabic to fulfil their language requirement. Their focus naturally drifted to Iberia and Italy, but of course a lot of primary source material for these areas includes Latin as well. So given the tendency of many authors to skip translations, students are forced to either forgo the material completely or slog through trying to figure out what the author is trying to say when he tosses in the odd Latin phrase
I never did any graduate work, so guilty as charged. I realize I fall somewhere below those with doctorates who are writing this stuff. However this term was used widely in my department including the professors, so it is not just limited to me. We used the term frequently. Sometimes it referred to an author who was using especially flowery or formal language. Sometimes it was used when the author would toss in unnecessary idiomatic expressions (or even worse irrelevant idiomatic expression). In all occasionally some authors seem to be more interested in stoking their ego or upping their publication count than communicating with their readers. Every language has idioms which are best described in that language. I speak Portuguese fairly fluently. Occasionally I will use a phrase which better describes something than any equivalent English phrase does. However if I were to use such a phrase where some of my audience might not understand the phase, it is incumbent on me to provide a translation. As I said when I made the statement, I have not read the work in question, so I cannot comment on if Paxton seems to be doing this. However Still, I do think this is a valid complaint about many historical works. The terminology was simply that was used at my school. If that seems harsh or over the top I apologize, I made the assumption it was in general use. (Perhaps it is only among us wolly-headed literary critics and confused undergraduates ).
As an example, I would say that Vichy France, by Robert Paxton is. It is sold in mainstream bookstores, Barnes and Noble for example. Its price ($17) indicates a book with larger print runs and greater availability. In its description on several web sites it is advertised as an overview of Vichy France. It is grouped with several general consumption books including several by Ambrose. This is not an essay that is published in a peer reviewed magazine. This is not an obscure title that is intended to be read only by graduate students in a class on the history of France in the 20th century. It is being marketed for general consumption. Paxton is making money off of that market positioning (knowing publishing he is probably not making much). So it is his responsibility to deliver the goods, so to speak.
Hopefully that doesn’t include me. I have nothing but respect for those who have been able successfully make careers out of a history degree. However like any profession there are better ways of doing things, and from the sound of the OP it sounds like Paxton could have done a better job.
Then there’s the case of the works of Dorothy L. Sayers, mystery writer from the '30s (you may recognizer her character, Lord Peter Wimsey).
Sayers was educated at Oxford, and her books are full of references that I think would have gone over the heads of most mystery readers back then: classic poetry, Shakespeare, Greek mythology, famous murder cases, Gilbert & Sullivan verses, music-hall songs and then-current trends in sociology, theater, poetry and political thought.
Just for fun, I’ve been annotating these references for my Web site. With google’s help, it’s giving me the opportunity to at least approach an education in the classics.
I’ve only done one novel so far, but now I’m into “Gaudy Night,” her novel set in Oxford. It’s crammed with references: all of the above, plus phrases and sentences in French, Latin and even f***in’ Greek!
Somehow, I don’t think she would have been sympathetic to my problem.
What you need is the terms of the conseiller maître’s office and the organizational structure within which that office works. That has nothing to do with droppping a French term, for through being a lawyer and a historian you already know that a conseiller maître is a senior magistrate of some sort.
What you don’t know is what the magistrate’s terms of office are. Without context, that could range from anywhere from a motions court judge to a member of a commission – a hugely wide range. Perhaps Paxton is expecting you to pick up a technical term from the context, rather than expect you to know French, for in this instance I doubt that a knowledge of French would help much. If Paxton is to be faulted, it would have to be for not recognizing the limits of the depth of specialized knowledge of his audience, rather than for using non-American vocabulary.
(My wild ass guess would be that a conseiller maître is someone in a judicial or adminitrative position and of significant experience and authority who reviews materials and makes decisions upon which more senior decision makers rely. But that’s just a guess.)