Le 24/11/2007, Pierre Hallet a supposé :
> GrandSrin :
>
>> France hit by strikes, "les usagers" suffering
>> from "le mouvement social"...
>
> Yes, quite a specific vocabulary. "Les usagers" are
> the users of public commodities like rail and subway
> but also electricity & gas... Attempts to call them
> "customers" fail regularly. Indeed, a "customer" is
> someone who might choose another provider is they
> are dissatisfied of the received service. But here
> there are no real alternative providers: for example,
> there are no other trains than those of SNCF. And
> "mouvement social" is the local understatement for
> "strike".
>
>> Amid the numerous comments in the dailies, this
>> one I cannot translate:
>> "on vit une galère pas possible!"
>
> Originally, "galère" means "gallow", and "galérer"
> was "to work as hard as a galley slave". Then its
> meaning was extended to "to have a lot of hassle,
> to have a hard time", and so "galère" meant "hard
> time". "On vit une galère pas possible", word for
> word, is "we're living an impossibly hard time".
>
> Pierre Hallet
Thanks a lot Pierre!
I also thought of "having a hellish time" or "it's a (bloody)
nightmare!"
--
GrandSrin
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