Francoscopie

Many thanks, PH, for this European perspective. It seems that stockings and the opaque and fashion ranges in tights are the growth areas. Unfortunately the author Gérard Mermet did not mention the other growth area, that of hosiery for men, but maybe that is not yet significant enough to register on the fashion radar.

We had difficulty translating 'en mousse' - well it was midnight and we were tired - and the best we could come up with at the time was '100% nylon'. But I am puzzled that sales of tights with lycra should have suffered more than 100% nylon ones, because most people that I know of seem to prefer the better fit (and the element of support) that tights with lycra give. On reflection, then, I think that 'en mousse' should probably be translated 'matt'. Even so, it still does not make complete sense, because matt tights often have a significant percentage of lycra these days. It is not so much the lycra per se that gives shine - it is the construction of the yarn and the cross section of the individual filaments.

Geraden

None of the translations of "en mousse" proposed by my dictionary is correct (foam, scum, moss, froth, mousse (!), lather, spume). But enough of these language courses. Figuratively, it means the type of fabric that cheap tights are made of. The kind of tights that runs easily, that provides no comfort, no support. It is practical to have a word to sum up this idea, but in its absence, we'll do like that. Every reader will have understood, given the explanations I supplied. ;-)

Thanks, PH, for giving us the meanings of the word mousse. I would add that it is a word that English has borrowed from the French language, but only in the culinary sense – a light dessert whose main ingredients are fruit and whipped egg-white. Returning to the translation, my first thought was that en mousse might be a reference to the texture of the fabric being slightly spongy. In that case, 'matt' might have been a reasonable translation, but as I could see, it did not make perfect sense.

But now a new thought strikes me, thinking of mousse as 'froth', which can be interpreted as something peripheral and of lesser value. If this is the idea, we are still in difficulties so far as the translation is concerned. 'Cheap' is a possibility, but is a bit weak as an expression. 'Tawdry' has the right sort of connotations, but it is rather archaic and would sound odd in context. We probably need to look in a different direction if we want to get something that the author might have said if he had been an English speaker writing in English. So my latest suggestion would be 'economy tights' or 'budget tights'. I do not think we will be able to capture the graphicness of the French word in translation. The problem with the existing '100% nylon' is that it is an interpretation rather than a translation.

Geraden

I would say that for any text written in a foreign language, what is called "translation" only consists in 80% of hardcore translation and the rest is interpretation. The reason is that sometimes there is no exact correspondence between a notion in a langage and in another, which prohibits a word by word translation. I suppose that any translator prefers an equivalence to a translation if it helps the final text to be more understandable. Otherwise, no need of a translator, we should better ask Google to perform the same task, but I doubt the result will be very reliable.

Did you hear about one of Tex Avery's cartoons called "Symphony in slang" ? It is very funny. It is about english idiomatic expressions understood literally. Imagine what you could think if you didn't know the real sense of "It is raining cats and dogs" ! "The drink is on the house" surely doesn't mean there is a giant glass of beer above the roof ! This is why I think "economy tights" is quite a good substitute for "mousse". It is good precisely because it is not a word by word translation, but it is an honest adaptation that fairly reflects the original meaning.

Take 10 human translators at random, give them the same french text and I bet you will get 10 different english translations. As long the overall meaning is not changed, it is ok with me.