Eliza Hall Sep 28, 2020:

@Germaine Germaine said: "comme c’est le défendeur qui parle - et non le juge - il est tout à fait permis de croire à de simples barbarismes de la part du locuteur" -- absolutely, yes. This is badly written, to the extent I wouldn't be surprised if the writer were a pro se defendant (a person representing himself), rather than a lawyer.

And: "il me semble qu’on peut distinguer dans « la preuve » les faits avérés et les allégations ou témoignages plus ou moins crédibles (de témoins plus ou moins fiables) qu’un juge peut tout à fait retenir ou rejeter"

Yes, that's true--but if evidence has been presented, you can't say it doesn't exist. You could say "no credible evidence," but you couldn't just say "no evidence."

I like your suggested translation (in your discussion post).

François Tardif Sep 27, 2020:

@ Lara OK, Lara, but I'm still looking for where the expression is listed with its official meaning! Where is the definition of “the sting in the evidence”??? Legalese is fine as long as it can be researched in some way, for everybody, even lawyers, to agree on. IMHO.

Germaine Sep 27, 2020:

Eliza, Je suis d’accord avec votre interprétation, à ceci près qu’il me semble qu’on peut distinguer dans « la preuve » les faits avérés et les allégations ou témoignages plus ou moins crédibles (de témoins plus ou moins fiables) qu’un juge peut tout à fait retenir ou rejeter.

Je réalise en vous lisant que comme c’est le défendeur qui parle - et non le juge - il est tout à fait permis de croire à de simples barbarismes de la part du locuteur, comme on en voit souvent (par ex. : https://www.proz.com/kudoz/french-to-english/law-general/687... Ainsi, « evidence given by » conduit logiquement à « le témoignage de » (comme vous le suggérez) et non à « la preuve présentée / the evidence presented ».

Alors, réflexion faite et compte tenu de vos commentaires, j’en arrive à « Malgré le témoignage [surprise][mordant] de M. AAA à l’effet que Dr BBB et Dr NNN étaient mes partenaires dans une entreprise, le juge a déterminé que rien ne le [prouvait][démontrait]. »

Lara Barnett Sep 27, 2020:

"Sting" in legal document I found one UK document online that uses this term, and it is from a legal case:
https://www.casemine.com/judgement/uk/5b46f1ed2c94e0775e7ee4...
(About third-way down page).
... so maybe this is lawyers working lingo.

Eliza Hall Sep 27, 2020:

To get a bit meta... If I can just go up one level, from the EN text itself to the context, it doesn't make sense there either.

It says, in essence, "Despite Mr. AAA's testimony that Dr. BBB and Dr. NNN were in business with me, the judge found that there was no evidence of this."

But here's the thing: testimony is evidence. (There are many types of evidence, and testimony is one of them.) So if there is testimony that X is true, then it's not possible for the judge to find that there is "no evidence" that X is true. I mean, it says right there that Mr. AAA gave such evidence! It exists!

So long story short, this sentence doesn't make sense either linguistically or logically. It's badly written (or perhaps just badly thought out--muddled thinking results in muddled sentences). That's why it is difficult to translate; we want to come up with something that makes sense -- but we're starting from something that doesn't.

François Tardif Sep 27, 2020:

It may have done perfect sense to the writer, but he also has to make sure that it makes sense to those who read his writing!

Wouldn't it have been much clearer to write:

“The Judge found that there was no evidence to prove that Dr BBB and Dr NNN were involved with me in a business, despite Mr. AAA’s very incriminating declaration.”

It’s obvious to me that if the writer of the sentence defends himself as he writes, he would have been beaten to a pulp in court... He is lucky that the judge could not corroborate Mr. AAA's statements! ;-)

François Tardif Sep 27, 2020:

@Daryo ??? I never said that! And I’m not sure the other François said that either…

Daryo Sep 26, 2020:

It does make perfect sense if you forget completely about the "sting" in the meaning of being a confidence trick or an entrapment by the police.

That meaning simply makes no sense whatsoever - whichever way you try to twist the text.

So it must be something else.

@François Tardif what you describe - coaching one set of criminals to give in court false evidence against another set of criminals wouldn't be a "sting operation".

Eliza Hall Sep 26, 2020:

If not typo... Although it's hard to know, since this is just not an idiomatically normal or correct use of the word sting, I lean towards disagreeing with Germaine and Tony. If this isn't a typo, I don't think the writer meant "surprise." I think it probably meant negative/painful, with perhaps also a sense of cheating or ambushing, as in the following:

"Turkey’s President Suffers Stinging Defeat in Istanbul Election Redo"
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/23/world/europe/istanbul-may...

"Those harsh words stung me" (Sting = To cause to suffer keenly in the mind or feelings): https://ahdictionary.com/word/search.html?q=STING

(Slang): A confidence game, especially one implemented by undercover agents to apprehend criminals

Sting: "a carefully planned and complicated plan which deceives people so that criminals can steal something: A bank employee was involved in the sting in which $5 million was stolen." Also: "a police action to catch criminals in which the police pretend to be criminals: a sting operation." https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/sting

Germaine Sep 26, 2020:

Dans ce cas-ci, je me range du côté de Tony: j’ai l’impression qu’on parle tout simplement d’une « allégation surprise » présentée en preuve :
Malgré la surprise [de][dans] la preuve présentée par M. AAA [à l’effet] que Dr BBB et Dr NNN étaient mes partenaires dans une entreprise, le juge a déterminé que rien ne le prouvait.

En fait, moins littéralement :
Malgré la preuve surprise présentée par M. AAA [à l’effet] [alléguant] que Dr BBB et Dr NNN étaient mes partenaires dans une entreprise, le juge a déterminé que rien ne le prouvait.

Eliza Hall Sep 25, 2020:

Typo? Could this be a typo? It does not make sense. I speak as an American lawyer who lived and studied for several years in the UK -- this makes no sense on any level of English that I'm aware of.

The sentence as a whole is a bit awkwardly written, so it could be an intentional but incorrect use of the word "sting."

François Tardif Sep 25, 2020:

(continued) E.g.,
- Officers set up a sting in which they sold him the jewels, and when he drove off with them they arrested him.

https://dictionary.cambridge.org/fr/dictionnaire/anglais/sti...

My two cents!

François Tardif Sep 25, 2020:

"despite there being an apparent sting in the ..." Étant donné la formulation bizarre de « be the sting », j’ai présumé que ce devait être un emploi britannique, car je connais peu cet anglais. Mais comme le que dit Polyglot, ça n’est pas une expression commune au R.U. — ni en Amérique du Nord d’ailleurs. Alors, plus j’y pense, plus j’en viens à croire que l’expression pourrait tout bonnement relever de l’« idiolecte » de l’auteur; en quel cas, le mieux serait de lui demander directement ce qu’il a voulu dire.

S’il est injoignable, on ne peut que jouer aux devinettes!

Une hypothèse?
La seule signification logique que j’y vois serait que l’auteur (qui n’a peut-être pas l’anglais comme langue maternelle) a voulu dire « despite there being an apparent sting (operation) in the evidence given by ...», comme dans le sens américain d’opération de police pour attraper des criminels, comme le rapporte le dico Cambridge ici :
sting
noun [ C ]
US /stɪŋ/
sting noun [C] (POLICE ACTIVITY)
an operation in which police officers or others pretend to be criminals so they can catch people committing crimes:
(continue)

Sylvie André (asker) Sep 25, 2020:

@ AllegroTrans Malheureusement c'est une citation dans un document autre ... je n'ai pas le document de départ .

polyglot45 Sep 25, 2020:

This is not a common UK expression to my knowledge.
On dirait une image adoptée par l'auteur - genre 'coup bas' porté par le témoin qui aurait laissé entendre que les 3 personnes incriminées étaient liées dans une entreprise commune

AllegroTrans Sep 25, 2020:

@ All Some valid points raised here; perhaps Asker can resolve them by reading the rest of the document

François Tardif Sep 25, 2020:

Le découpage est bien « to be the sting » et non « sting in the evidence », comme mentionné. Cela me semble être une expression propre à l’anglais britannique, ou du moins à un jargon britannique. On pourrait spéculer longtemps sur le sens de cette expression, mais pour en avoir le cœur net, il faudrait qu’un collègue britannique qui connait cette langue verte nous vienne en aide...

Tony M Sep 25, 2020:

@ Emmanuella I don't think so, here — this is more the notion of 'dard', I'm sure the idea is the same as the 'sting in the tail' associated literally with scorpions, but also figuratively with 'an unexpected unpleasant surprise' that is revealed as a result of soemthing else.
Here, it sounds as if e.g. the defence witness Mr AAA had inadvertently revealed something that might e.g. help the prosecution and harm the defence.

Emmanuella Sep 25, 2020:

On peut associer sting à une pointe , un soupçon de preuve ,etc.

polyglot45 Sep 25, 2020:

je crois que cela veut dire pique - une petite pique en passant selon laquelle BBB et NNN auraient été de mèche