"in plain air"

[jctgf]

Hi,

Does this expression exist in English?

I have found the following on a web site:

"Despite it was in plain air since the roof of it's hangar was blew up, she is in good shape tells the officials."

Thanks,
JC

 

[Anglika]

Hi,

Does this expression exist in English?

I have found the following on a web site:

"Despite it was in plain air since the roof of it's hangar was blew up, she is in good shape tells the officials."

Thanks,
JC

There is a collocation "in the open air", but this sentence [typical of websites]does not use it correctly. In fact the entire sentence is thoroughly ungrammatical :roll:

Despite being in the open air since the roof of its/her hangar was blown up/off, it/she is in good shape, said the officials.

 

[jctgf]

Hi,

Thank you very much!

I still have a small doubt.

I have found other examples of "in plain air" on the web (actually, on the same site...).

Things like "pictures of the airplane in plain air minutes before it...".

Should I use "in the open air" also in this context?

Is "in plain air" completely impossible in English and never used by natives?

Thanks,
jc

 

[Anglika]

It certainly doesn't turn up in the British National Corpus which rather indicates that it is not acceptable.

The other sentence you give would read better as: "pictures of the airplane in the air minutes before it..."

 

[BobK]

'In plain air' sounds like the sort of mistake a Francophone might make (or an Englishman who has been living in a French-speaking country), because of the faux ami: "plein air".

b

 

[vil]

Attention: I'm not a teacher.

Hi jctgf,

To tell you the truth, I have to keep quiet concerning the present thread but I couldn’t bridle my tongue especially when I’m itching to speak. There are more words that back up your speculation.

Air plain = open air en plein air

in the open / out / out-of-doors / outdoors

How fast dous a person fall out of an air plain?

Answer

About 55 meters per second is "terminal velocity".
Learn how to paint with oils in plain air in this free instructional video art lesson on oil painting.
New “Biofuel Cell” Produces Electricity from Hydrogen in Plain Air.
I think the Directory is a wonderful tool, and it’s working for me. The Web site has been extremely useful. I direct people to it, not just for my work, but so they will gain an understanding of what plain air painting is all about.”

Plain air outdoor furniture.

Plain air painter of nature, landscapes, and still life.

The evocative sentence comes in fact from a little book called La Cuisine en Plein Air by that most adorable of French gastronomes,
It was painted in 1814 and is one of a group of works executed en plein air in Rome during the artist's three year stay in that city.
Ralph had recognised the quality of those intimate plein air sketches of Welsh valleys.

Regards.

V.

 

[Anglika]

"Plain air painter" - this one is always used with the French term: "plein air painter", and can be translated as "open air painter" = a painter who works in the open rather than in a studio.

 

[jctgf]

'In plain air' sounds like the sort of mistake a Francophone might make (or an Englishman who has been living in a French-speaking country), because of the faux ami: "plein air".

b

Hi,

Hi,

This topic proves that apparently very simple things turn out to be very complicated.

I am not sure that the French “en plen air” and the Portuguese “em pleno ar” mean the same.

We have “em plena viagem” (in plain trip), “em plena queda” (in plain fall), “em pleno caminho” (in plain way), “em pleno voo” (in plain flight) and a lot more.

The best translation for this Portuguese expression is “right in the middle of”.

By saying “the airplane’s engine started to fail in plain air” I’d like to mean “right in the middle of the air/flight”.

When I say “I noticed that I had forgotten all my documents in plain trip”, I mean “in the middle of the trip”.

“He managed to grab the rope in plain fall and it saved his life” would mean “in the very middle of the fall…”.

There are many possibilities for the Portuguese “em pleno…” and I wonder if there’s an equivalent expression in English.

Thanks,
Jc
jc

 

[BobK]

'....right in the middle of..." can sometimes (*) be "full in the"; "when he put his head over the top, the wind caught him full in the face"; but in most cases I use 'right in the middle of' to translate 'em pleno'. There are alternatives to the word "right", with varying degrees of informality: 'bang in the middle of', 'slap bang in the middle of', 'right slap bang in the middle of', 'plumb in the middle of' - that last one suggests some degree of geometrical accuracy [so you'd use it of an area, rather than an abstract thing like a flight].

b

PS *I need to think about where.

 

[BobK]

PS Referring specifically to a blow, there's also 'smack in the mouth' and 'crack on the head'; thinking about those two, I think you could probably use any onomatopoeic word to replace 'bang'.

b

 

[BobK]

PPS re translating em pleno... ;-)

There's also the prefix "mid-", which lets you dispense with the 'right in the...' part; it has the advantage of fitting onto most nouns - so something can happen 'in mid-flight','in mid-season', 'in mid-flight'.... Colloquially (very informal) you can tack it onto a verb too: 'She started complaining about something as usual, but I cut her off in mid-whinge...': [NOT RECOMMENDED - DON'T TRY THIS AT HOME!]

You can also use "mid-" to make an adjective, as in 'mid-air collision', 'mid-life crisis', 'mid-term elections' etc etc.

b