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Glossary entry

French term or phrase:

baignoire chinée

English translation:

a bath (I) unearthed at a bric-a-brac sale (held) at Fontainbleau

Added to glossary by Nina Iordache
Jul 8, 2015 12:49
8 yrs ago
2 viewers *
French term

baignoire chinée

Non-PRO French to English Marketing Furniture / Household Appliances Junk shops
My context is : objects found in junk shops:

"baignoire chinée au château de Fontainebleau"

I'm not sure about chinée : does the tub have an image on it with the castle?
Proposed translations (English)
4 a bath (I) unearthed at a bric-a-brac sale (held) at Fontainbleau
4 +4 (bargain hunted) tub
3 +2 bathtub bargain
References
chiner
Change log

Jul 8, 2015 12:53: writeaway changed "Field" from "Other" to "Marketing"

Jul 8, 2015 20:58: Nikki Scott-Despaigne changed "Level" from "PRO" to "Non-PRO"

Votes to reclassify question as PRO/non-PRO:

Non-PRO (3): Michele Fauble, Tony M, Nikki Scott-Despaigne

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Discussion

Tony M Jul 8, 2015:
@ Asker Do be careful not to appear to imply they were selling off bits of the château!

I feel pretty sure that Fontainebleau, like many other tourist sites in FR, the UK, and no doubt elsewhere, is simply being used as a venue for a (probably widely-known) brocante or vide-grenier sales.
Nina Iordache (asker) Jul 8, 2015:
@ All Thank you!
B D Finch Jul 8, 2015:
@Patrick Taking liberties with it, rather than risks! I think the problem is your creation of an adjective from a compound verb that doesn't really lend itself to being stretched that way.
patrickfor Jul 8, 2015:
I used" bargain hunted" as a reference to the famous "Bargain Hunt" program on BBC1...making a verb out of it :-) I am bargain hunting blahblah...
Taking some risks with my favourite language, apart from french indeed :-)
B D Finch Jul 8, 2015:
@Patrick I think that your idea of "hunted" is good, but "bargain-hunted" would not work. I've now suggested "bathtub bargain, hunted down at the château de Fontainebleau" and certainly think you should have the credit for the idea of "hunted". When an animal is hunted, it might get away, but if it is hunted down it is caught and/or killed.
patrickfor Jul 8, 2015:
chiner is the combination of potentialy both
-> looking for an objet in various places antiques shop, car boot sale (vide-greniers), flea market (marché aux puces)
-> Discussing the price, looking for a bargain.

Secondhand is too restrictive, Bargain is about a fair price, none of these convey the basic idea... I think...

Proposed translations

9 hrs
Selected

a bath (I) unearthed at a bric-a-brac sale (held) at Fontainbleau

I think it's actually important to expand this slightly to make it more natural in EN and avoid shoe-horning it into an awkward past participle.

You don't give us enough context to know whether the 'I' (or any other person) is appropriate / usable here.

You could substitute other types of sale for 'bric-a-brac', such as 'antiques fair' or 'car boot sale' or somesuch — it might be worth doing a little research of your own to see what kind of sales they hold at Fontainbleau.

personalyl, I wouldn't worry to much about keeping 'château' — and ought it perhaps not to be 'palace' anyway? Always a tricky one that! But just 'at Fontainebleau' will sound like a nod to people "in the know", just as we might say "at Longleat / Beaulieu" etc.
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4 KudoZ points awarded for this answer. Comment: "Thank you kindly!"
+4
26 mins

(bargain hunted) tub

chinée comes from the verb chiner (looking for second hand goods at a fair price)

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Note added at 29 mins (2015-07-08 13:18:40 GMT)
--------------------------------------------------

cf TLFI: Brocanter, chercher des occasions :

En ce moment, Rémonencq, réconcilié avec son ancien bourgeois Monistrol, en affaires avec de gros marchands, allait chiner (...) dans la banlieue de Paris, qui, vous le savez, comporte un rayon de quarante lieues.
BALZAC in "Le Cousin Pons", 1847, p. 109.
Peer comment(s):
neutral B D Finch : Not all tubs are bathtubs!//True! However, I don't think that "bargain-hunted bathtub" works (even with the hyphen). My suggestion of combining "bargain" with "found" is, perhaps, too weak. "Unearthed" might be better, but risks an archeological confusion
1 hr
pretty sure the issue isn't the "baignoire" it's "chiné" the interesting bit don't you think?
agree writeaway : yup. chiner, another term found in any Fr-En dictionary. It is best to specify bathtub in the context.
2 hrs
Merci !
neutral Sheri P : Agree with the meaning, but not the form. 'Bargain hunted X' doesn't sound like idiomatic English to me.//Re your disc. post: In this case, the participle doesn't work as a modifier, unfortunately. It would have been a neat solution otherwise.
2 hrs
do you watch BBC1 in NYC? :-)
agree mchd
2 hrs
Merci !
agree Michele Fauble
4 hrs
Merci !
neutral Tony M : '(bath)tub' is very American, it is normally called just a 'bath' in EN-GB.
6 hrs
thanks Tony, yes it's a bath my mistake!
agree Nikki Scott-Despaigne : "hunted down" yes, but forget the "bargain" idea here. And I agree with bathtub (US) and bath (GB).
7 hrs
Thanks Nikki. The thing is you have to haggle (maybe a better verb than to bargain?) as in this context you rarely have a list price... The french would be "marchander"
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+2
2 hrs

bathtub bargain

Suggest:
Bathtub bargain, found at the château de Fontainebleau

--------------------------------------------------
Note added at 2 hrs (2015-07-08 15:26:01 GMT)
--------------------------------------------------

Re my note on Patrick's answer and his response, I think that "found" is inadequate. Perhaps "bargain bathtub, hunted down at the château de Fontainebleau".

--------------------------------------------------
Note added at 2 hrs (2015-07-08 15:28:43 GMT)
--------------------------------------------------

Hunting was, I believe, one of the French royal pastimes indulged at Fontainebleau, so "hunted down" might evoke that.

--------------------------------------------------
Note added at 9 hrs (2015-07-08 21:59:54 GMT)
--------------------------------------------------

https://www.masterofmalt.com/gin/professor-cornelius-amplefo...
"Bathtub Gin Bottling Note
An extraordinary award-winning gin, produced by the enigmatic Professor Cornelius Ampleforth. "

www.duravit.co.uk/website/.../starck_tubsshower_trays.com-e... 1800 x 800 mm · 700010 Bathtub. #700010. Bathtub 1800 x 800 mm · 700011 Bathtub ... 700013 Bathtub with support frame · #700013. Bathtub with ...

www.dailymail.co.uk/.../The-35-000-Yin-Yang-bathtub-couples... Nov 2013 - The Yin Yang bathtub is ideal for couples who want to spend quality time together without encroaching on each others' personal space.

www.independent.co.uk › News › World › Europe12 Feb 2015 - A young Russian woman has died after her charging iPhone fell into the bathtub in her Moscow flat.

www.telegraph.co.uk › Culture › Art Photography11 Feb 2014 - Lee Miller: the woman in Hitler's bathtub.
Note from asker:
Thank you! "bathtub bargain, hunted down at the château de Fontainebleau" is very good for me!
Peer comment(s):
agree Sheri P : Good solution
35 mins
Thanks Sheri
agree Tony M : Although I'm not so keen on 'bathtub', any use of 'tub' always rings rather American to my ears; I can see why you didn't just want to leave it as a bald 'bath', so I guess we may have to live with it. / Yes, I agree! Don't waste your time for me ;-)
5 hrs
Thanks Tony. "Bath bargain" or "Bargain bath" both sound wrong. I'll post some proof of bathtub being proper English English. Done: everything from gin to Hitler with bathing refs too.//Never mind, I liked the gin.
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Reference comments

8 hrs
Reference:

chiner

Familiar everyday French for hunting of bargains. Can be rendered by "hunt, hunt down, picked up..." a large choice of possibilities, depedning on the context.
First stop should have been a FR/FR dictionary to check the meaning:


http://www.larousse.fr/dictionnaires/francais/chiner/15383

Familier
Brocanter.
Chercher des occasions chez les brocanteurs, les antiquaires, dans les marchés aux puces, etc.


And a quick cross-check (Google : chiner + larousse + english) for example =
http://www.larousse.fr/dictionnaires/francais-anglais/chiner...

chiner [ʃine]
verbe intransitif conjugaison
[faire les boutiques] to go round the second-hand shops



That way you would have got the meaning. After that, it's amatter of choosing the right register. It would have avoided what would have been a serious mistake in seeking to describe a picture of the château. It actually means that was where it was found ("chinée")!
Note from asker:
Thank you, Nikki!
Something went wrong...
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