I came across this French-language column about Gary Carter in my Twitter feed, and, for reasons I can’t explain, I decided to dust off the few vestiges of my high school French in attempt to read it.
Needless to say, even with the help of my French-to-English dictionary app I spent about a half-hour slogging through the first few paragraphs. However, luckily for me, one sentence that came relatively easily was this beauty:
From 1979 to 1982, the Expos compiled the best record in the National League with 331 wins against 261 defeats, and Carter was at the summit of his art.
That third clause is a charming turn of phrase, one you simply wouldn’t see in English, at least not in the context of baseball. If the author, Denis Casavant, were American or had written this in English, he’d have written something like, “and Carter was at the height of his game.”
Close, but not close at all, right?
