[burnte]

> By the way the french translation of "Your son is dead" as "Votre fils est mort" is very dry and tasteless

That's exactly the point. You wouldn't really say it like this in English either, but in a Soviet style totalitarian state, it's easy to see.

[ekianjo]

I still disagree. Look at how the words are used in a formal context in English and in French: in English you say "Death Certificate" for the document recording the death and events leading to the person, but in French it translates to "Certificat de Deces", and certainly not "Certificat de Mort" - people would be laughing at such a translation in that particular context, hence the reason why I think the French translation in this particular context is inappropriate.

[antimagic]

Nah, you're still wrong - it's the correct translation - the tone is every bit as detached in both the English and French versions - a softer version of "Your son is dead" is indeed "Your son is deceased", or even gentler "your son has passed away". The tone of "Your son is dead" in English is every bit as cold and impersonal as "Votre fils est mort" in French...

(speaking as a native English speaker, that has lived / worked in Paris for the last ten years)

[ekianjo]

You didn't answer my point about the certificate part. Please explain why the words are different in French and in English then.

[tripzilch]

"(is) dead" and "death" are different words in English, which both can be literally translated with "mort" in French.

that's different words in English.

similarly there's other languages that would translate the English words "(of) death" and "death (of)" to different words (because of case).

and you don't say "Certificate of the Dead", which is yet another phrase with a different meaning and nearly the same words.

it's just different!

[burnte]

Explain why they're different? Really? Why are mort and the other French word different? The why would take explaining the evolution of the language. The fact that they are different in itself is the point however. Dead is a very clinical word in describing the state of death, while deceased or "passed away" is a much softer way of communicating it. That's simply how English is. You can't look at it from the perspective of the French language any more the you can look at French via the lens of English. English is a mutt of a language, Germanic in origin, heavily influenced by Latin and Romance languages, with a significant independent evolution on its own.

The tone "dead" confers is much colder than deceased, which is exactly why the author chose to use it. To show the state couldn't care less.

[antimagic]

Uh, because sometimes direct translation isn't appropriate? That was your own point, was it not? It's just that the case you picked happened to be one where the direct translation was in fact the correct translation...

[ekianjo]

Yeah, and that's the point I am still making about the original example. I guess we'll have to agree to disagree.

[antimagic]

Well, we could just agree that you're wrong ;)