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French language (monolingual) [PRO] Law/Patents - Law: Contract(s)
French term or phrase:Celer = Sceller ?
An email says that the parties are about to "celer" their cooperation agreement. To me, it seems to be an error: "celer" instead of "sceller". They certainly don't mean to "conceal" their deal. However, someone is claiming that "celer" can also mean something like "sign" or "close" a deal or a contract. Can anyone attest to this use? Thank you very much for your help!
L'orthographe se perd ... Tout comme la culture générale. Qui n'a jamais reçu "Les Perles du Bac" ? À se tordre de rire ... ou à en pleurer. Il y a les correcteurs orthographiques (utiles pour moi lorsque j'écris trois s ou trois m en ayant trop appuyé sur la touche) mais seul l'excellent logiciel canadien d'aide à la rédaction peut détecter les erreurs de sens. Pas de nom de marque donc pensez à "poisons".
Entièrement d'accord avec mchd et vjc: il n'y a aucun doute ici que le verbe est sceller (et non celer ou geler). Si l'on veut parler du niveau de langage, la personne qui aurait l'érudition d'utiliser vraiment "celer" aurait celle de ne pas écrire "je reste dans l'attente" et "d'ici à cet été". On ne peut pas avoir pour "but" de celer un protocole et encore moins sur une période de six mois (janvier-été ou été-janvier, selon le contexte). Les choses qu'on souhaite cacher ne se discutent pas par courriel. Finalement, "sceller notre coopération", "sceller notre entente" sont des locutions courantes.
Plus ça va, moins les gens savent écrire (en tout cas, c'est ce que je constate de ce côté-ci de l'Atlantique) et le fait qu'ils soient présidents d'une société, avocats ou secrétaires n'y change pas grand chose. Si vous voyiez la quantité de gens à exprimer qu'ils sont "septiques" face à une situation x-y, vous ne douteriez pas une milliseconde qu'on cherchait simplement à écrire "sceller" dans ce texte là!
@ Tony Oh yes I do! Like I cannot spell "langage" properly... most of the time I spell it the english way "language".... Also I confuse guest and host (in english) as in french "hôte" is both (and sounds/spells almost like "host".... Weird isn't it?
I think you are giving her/him credit for greater literacy than may be the case:
"... if the author can't spell "sceller" then he would (?) have writen it "céler" more than "celer"."
I feel sure that if the writer was capable of confusing the two verbs, s/he would likely have missed the nuance of pronunciation, that the accented 'e' would make — certainly at least in their 'interior' ear!
Don't know about you, but I often find myself typing (near) homonyms, sometimes across FR and EN! I wonder what odd mechanism in my brain makes any kind of link between my fingers typing on the keys and the sound of the word?
I think I didn't make myself clear (11:13)... I never ever thought it could be "celer" I am only guessing it COULD be "geler" because then it would be a simple mistyping (changing a "g" into a "c") and if the author can't spell "sceller" then he would (?) have writen it "céler" more than "celer"
'celer' meaning: cacher, dissimuler, taire, tenir secret, so I do not believe that this is the proper word for the context. 'Sceller' is more likely to be right like: sceller un acte, to close a deal etc...
@ Asker my question about the nationality of the writer was more about the sort of french he was speaking... being myself a frenchman I cannot dismiss a word as it can be used in another french speaking country... Like "un char", for a car, used in Canada is totally unknown of in France... So before thinking it's a mistake one has to know what sort of variant is used....
@mchd je ne comprends pas votre remarque: Il me semble que personne n'évoque la possibilité que ce soit "celer" si ?
Thank you all for the serious and engaged assistance. I highly respect the attempt to avoid the conclusion that the autor - how is indeed a native French speaker - misspelled. However, in this context it doesn't seem that the partners wished to "geler" = freeze their cooperation, but to launch it. I therefore tend to think it was after all an error.
je vois mal dans quel but on va "celer un protocole", ensuite se rencontrer, puis "celer une coopération", sinon dans le but de souscrire à une quelconque entente commerciale !
Although as Patrick says, when correctly pronounced, they shouldn't sound the same, I still can't help feeling that the combination of a sloppy typiste and/or a sloppy dictater could well lead to this sort of error; and I'd likewise be very interested to see if a speech recognition system is capable of making the distinction correctly without VERY careful dictation?
@ mchd You might obviously be right, but it is a rather BIG spelling mistake on top of that there is no accent on the "e" so it even doesn't SOUND the same.... céler sounds like sceller, celer doesn't... So it has to be checked somehow....
@DLyons: Not necessarily "geler" has the meaning of "to keep it as it is". "une négociation gelée" is not going anywhere but "geler un accord" can mean keep it as is... like if you don't want to take into account something that could change, so you "freeze" it.
1. "Ceci dans le but de celer un protocole d'ici au 1 janvier 2011". 2. "Je reste dans l'attente de notre prochaine rencontre pour celer d'ici à cet été notre coopération".
peer agreement (net): +4