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Explanation: I'm assuming this is for the same text as your other questions. If so, the colour theme seems more important than the reference to drunkenness, hence my suggestion of an idiom using black.
oui les autres expressions sont parfaites. Je suppose, à la lecture du texte, que l'auteur a utilisé "noir *d'ivresse*" pour conserver le rythme de la phrase (à chaque fois 2 termes dont une couleur). S'il ne l'avait pas fait, "être noir" aurait été le... mouton noir de la phrase ! Dans ce contexte, je garderais donc effectivement le texte fr. tel quel.
"Sur un autre plan, l’homme utilise aussi les couleurs pour traduire ses émotions ou ses sentiments : être vert de peur, rouge de honte, être noir d’ivresse ou voir la vie en rose." Good French? Should it be modified or not?
Kashew / Polyglot, je peux me tromper mais je n'ai jamais entendu "noir d'ivresse" en Fr-Fr, et notamment pas dans le sens de "grisant" - même si j'aime personnellement beaucoup cette interprétation ! Nous avons l'expression, un peu vieillotte, "être noir" (= "être ivre", avoir trop bu) Voir I-B-3 http://www.cnrtl.fr/definition/noir/substantif. Je pencherais plutôt pour les premières interprétations données : "Etre noir d'ivresse"serait peut-être une déformation d'"être noir", une sorte de pléonasme.
I've now done it - Polyglot's way! PS: I think "ivresse" must mean "transport". PPS: I've learnt that green for inexperienced is bleu in French! PPPS: "It's not easy being green" - Kermit. Translate that!
Frankly "noir d'ivresse" relating to being one over the eight is not a usage I have ever heard in France - I associate it more with something that is "grisant"
you've got me wondering now, Kashew, whether "ivresse" here necessarily refers to "alcoholic" intoxication. Might it just be "black mood"? (an excess of bile). "ivresse" can mean any form of "excess". Just saw polyglot45's entry, he's on the right track.
and ditching those that don't - we are not "green" with fear but perhaps "white", "red" with shame or perhaps "pink", purple with anger, black with hatred, green with jealousy - take your pick !
"Sur un autre plan, l’homme utilise aussi les couleurs pour traduire ses émotions ou ses sentiments : être vert de peur, rouge de honte, être noir d’ivresse ou voir la vie en rose. La couleur est partout dans l’expression de nos sentiments : le rouge couleur sang traduit la passion, le vert comme la nature [ou] la naissance, le bleu comme le ciel l’esprit et la pensée, le jaune comme le soleil l’invention, la découverte, l’intuition."
So, some colours (and associations) transpose near enough but others don't cross the cultural barrier. An interesting translating problem, eh? Do I keep the colour or the association? Especially for the "black" one.
Interesting, in everyday parlance, in reference to mood, "noir" would mean "dark" or "black" - in terms of drunkeness, to a low drunken mood, not to a high drunken mood. "Noir d'ivresse" would aptly describe that dour, sullen character you might spot in the dark corner of a pub on the way to the WC, totally lost to the world, pathetically nursing a half-empty (sic.) glass of the hard stuff. Gloom and doom and self-medication! would like to get Kashew's opinion judging from the rest of his text.
I don't think 'black-out' has any direct connection with the colour, I think it's more about 'blacking- out', i.e. becoming unconscious as a result of drinkng too much
From the way I've heard this expression used in everyday parlance, I don't think there's any specific asscoiation with depression, a 'black mood', etc.
can't think of a colour equivalent, unless you consider something like in a "dark drunken stupor" or in the "throes of drunkeness"; here I'd say reference is made to a dark, distressful, dour state of inebriety, not to a state of merry exuberance.
FR seems to use colours like gris and noir, and even German has ,blau wie eine Nonne' — but I can't think of anything similar at all in EN — unless you could indirectly count 'green' (isn't that the colour of newts...?) — or 'kaleidoscope' (as in vomit!)
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Answers
8 mins confidence: peer agreement (net): -2
paint the town red
Explanation: I know it's not really an equivalent of being drunk but if you want to keep the colour theme there's the association with boisterous celebration, having a good time and going round all the bars ...
Catharine Cellier-Smart Reunion Local time: 13:14 Works in field Native speaker of: English PRO pts in category: 4
1 hr confidence:
blind intoxication
Explanation: Don't know how literary the French is but "intoxication" sounds nobler than "drunkenness", or the more Anglo-Saxon "pi**ed".
Marian Vieyra United Kingdom Local time: 10:14 Specializes in field Native speaker of: English PRO pts in category: 16