Faute commune No. 1 : “Eventually”
Exemple : “The Partner told the Senior Associate that she would eventually be promoted to Partner.”
Cette utilisation est correcte si l’on est certain que ceci va arriver, sans savoir quand.
Elle est incorrecte s’il s’agit seulement d’une possibilité
Explication : eventually = finalement, un jour / possibly = éventuellement
Faute commune No. 2 : “the right one” vs. “the good one.”
Incorrect : “We’ve received many good CVs to fill the position of IP Associate. Although that’s good news, it doesn’t guarantee that we will find the good person.”
Correct : “We’ve received many good CVs to fill the position of IP Associate. Although that’s good news, it doesn’t guarantee that we will find the right person.”
Explication : ici, the right = qui convient. En anglais, on peut dire “a good one” [“a good doctor”, “a good car”, etc.], mais jamais “the good one.”
Faute commune No. 3 : “Respecter” vs. “to respect”
Incorrect : “John should never have posted that message on Facebook : we expect all of our lawyers to respect our Social Media publishing rules !”
Correct : “John should never have posted that message on Facebook : we expect all of our lawyers to comply with (ou “to follow”) our Social Media publishing rules !”
Explication : Respecter (une règle) = to comply with, to follow (a rule). Respecter (une personne) = to respect (a person).
Faute commune No. 4 : “Precision” “vs. “Précisions”
Incorrect : “Our client complained that our legal memo was too vague and asked for a number of precisions.”
Correct : Our client complained that our legal memo was too vague and asked for a number of clarifications (or “explanations”).
Explication : En anglais, “Precision” apparaît toujours au singulier et ne signifie pas “plus d’information” ou “des informations plus claires” [exemple de la bonne utilisation : “we need high precision equipment for this very technical job”].
Discussions en cours :
Thank you Ken !
This clarifications will help to comply with english grammar.
Happy to "connect" on LinkedIn with you and any other readers. :-)
Ken
Thank you Ken, interesting article, specially on what we call " les faux Amis".