AllegroTrans Aug 25, 2021:

Hello Wyley Are you there?

Lisa Rosengard Aug 25, 2021:

I chose not to suggest the terms 'dead' or 'deaf', as I didn't understand disability benefits to be the definite issue. I understood it was about redundancy or compensation payments ('pour être indemnisé') on account of occupational illnesses or hazards (des maladies professionnelles). Nonetheless 'sourd' means 'deaf'. I didn't know the idiom 'sourd dans le tapis'. It might have a subjective connotation, so I suggested 'brushed under the carpet', though another expression could be be 'cast aside'.

AllegroTrans Aug 24, 2021:

Hello Wyley Two of us have asked for more context. Please could you provide. Thanks!

Carol Gullidge Aug 24, 2021:

Wyley "Getting this wrong due to lack of background information could have unforeseen consequences."

So, Wyley, please delve a little deeper, and provide more context here, even if this means referring this back to the Outsourcer!

Carol Gullidge Aug 24, 2021:

@Daryo and Allegro. I think you're both making very good points.
We would need further context to judge if the speaker was referring specifically to hearing damage, or whether he/she was just making a general point about the extreme difficulty in obtaining compensation for work-related injuries. In the latter case, a hyperonym or Generalising Translation such as "at death's door" would probably be perfectly OK.
But it would be essential to establish the context here; otherwise, without being sure of this, it's safer to stick to the more direct translation. Getting it wrong could have unforeseen consequences.

AllegroTrans Aug 24, 2021:

Fair point Daryo But using deafness to illustrate the extreme seems rather odd, at least in English where I think we would probably use a more extreme example. The Asker does have this freedom of choice given that this is reporting speech and not, say, a legal document.
However, it would clear up the issue if she could give us the missing context here.

Daryo Aug 24, 2021:

There is no reason to presume that il faudra être sourd dans le tapis pour être indemnisé

refers to anything else than hearing problems, that it's more than just an illustration for how high the bar was set to claim professional disability using hearing as an example.

They could have used as example "you will need to lose both legs to get indemnity for loss of mobility" or "you won't get compensation for blindness unless you lose both eyes" or any other extreme example.

This union has probably lots of members working in very noisy factories, do they used hearing loss as an example.

AllegroTrans Aug 23, 2021:

@ Lisa Defend your suggestion!

AllegroTrans Aug 23, 2021:

@ All Althea deserves credit for researching this Québecois expression and I don't want to downplay that in any way. However, we are left with a single, isolated sentence which I would translate as "you'd have to be stone deaf to get compensation/cover/coverage". That would make sense if the discussion is about, say, a range of hearing-related conditions, but does it make sense otherwise? If Wyley could please post some surrounding text and/or tell us exactly what is under discussion here, maybe we will know.

Carol Gullidge Aug 23, 2021:

@ Althea Agree totally with Ormiston! Without your proper insight into the vicissitudes of the Quebec dialect and your clear explanation, I would still be struggling to make any sense of this.
Marco did allude to this meaning, but didn't include any explanation in the main part of his Answer

Carol Gullidge Aug 23, 2021:

@ Lisa, re "brushed under the carpet" I'm totally mystified by your entry, most especially by "achieved by the power of gossip or the 'gift of the gab"
What you mean by this, and how is it relevant to this Question?

AllegroTrans Aug 22, 2021:

il faudra être sourd dans le tapis... Asker, could ypu please post some of the text before and after this line, as it is not completely clear. Thanks!

ormiston Aug 22, 2021:

Althea, you are a gem With your sleuthing!

Althea Draper Aug 22, 2021:

Here's another one - item 17
"When I lived in Montréal, I would see signs for Cheetos that read “Fromage dans le tapis”.

Being skilled in French, but not French idioms, I translated it literally to “There’s cheese in the carpet” and was baffled for months until somebody explained it to me.

What it meant was “Cheese to the max” or something like it.

See, “dans the tapis” translated literally means “in the carpet”. But colloquially it means the equivalent “pedal to the metal”.

If you think about stomping a gas pedal to the floor, it’s actually not touching metal, but it is touching carpet, so the French colloquialism actually makes more sense."
https://www.roughmaps.com/culture/people-from-around-the-wor...

So, as this is from Québec, I would say "sourd dans le tapis" would be stone deaf or profoundly deaf.

Althea Draper Aug 22, 2021:

'Dans le tapis' is a Québec saying meaning full blast, at a maximum, etc.. Here are a few examples.
From Speak Québec!: A Guide to Day-To-Day Quebec French, "mettre la musique dans le tapis - to play music at high volume"
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=obzpDAAAQBAJ&pg=PT111&lp...
This one about teenagers - "À cet âge, on a « les hormones dans le tapis »" i.e. they have a huge amount of hormones at that age.
https://www.journaldemontreal.com/2020/04/06/attention-a-vos...
This article about stressed people in Québec -
"C’est avec ces critères en tête qu’on s’est demandé qui serait la personne la plus stressée du Québec. Qui sont ceux et celles qui vivent leur quotidien avec l’adrénaline dans le tapis ?"
https://plus.lapresse.ca/screens/3e8c639e-3049-4132-9d73-d5a...

David Hollywood Aug 22, 2021:

this 1 is getting ever more interesting

ormiston Aug 21, 2021:

Lisa. What does this mean in context? How does it begin to fit?

Lisa Rosengard Aug 21, 2021:

brushed under the carpet An interpretation from a source text:
"Clause 59 makes the recognition of occupational hazards be difficult. It was envisaged that one would need to be brushed under the carpet before being made redundant. What awaits victims of a system could be social assistance which is achieved by the power of gossip or the 'gift of the gab'."

David Hollywood Aug 21, 2021:

and Carol has a point

Carol Gullidge Aug 21, 2021:

One question at a time! According to the KudoZ rules, "tirage de yab' par la queue " should be posted as a second question.

Emmanuella Aug 21, 2021:

2ème question - je propose 'tirer le diable par la queue', i.e , avoir des difficultés à subvenir à ses besoins

ph-b (X) Aug 21, 2021:

tirage de yab' par la queue « yab' » ressemble à une déformation phonétique de « diable ». Cf. « Prononciation » ici : https://fr.wiktionary.org/wiki/diable. Si c'est le cas, cf. « Tirer le diable par la queue (fam.). Vivre dans la gêne, avec très peu de ressources. » (https://www.cnrtl.fr/definition/diable). Struggling to make ends meet vient à l'esprit.