Glossary entry (derived from question below)
French term or phrase:
il y a pas xx pour cent ... qui ont ...
English translation:
fewer than xx percent... have ...
French term
il y a pas xx pour cent ... qui ont - typical phrase?
Dans le journal, on dit qu'*il y a pas onze pour cent des appartements a Paris qui ont* des salles de bains.
What does the part between the asterisks it mean exactly? 11% did or did not have des salles de bains?
Is this sentence structure used nowadays? Or is it obsolete, marked as belonging to a certain period of time?
Thanks in advance
| 4 +6 | fewer than xx percent... have ... |
Tony M
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| 4 +2 | hardly |
Francis Marche
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| 4 +1 | there are less than xx percent which have |
Colin Morley (X)
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Oct 12, 2014 14:44: writeaway changed "Field" from "Art/Literary" to "Social Sciences" , "Field (specific)" from "Poetry & Literature" to "General / Conversation / Greetings / Letters" , "Field (write-in)" from "(none)" to "everyday French"
Oct 12, 2014 16:37: Anca Florescu-Mitchell changed "Level" from "PRO" to "Non-PRO"
Oct 19, 2014 06:23: Tony M Created KOG entry
Non-PRO (3): Francis Marche, Carol Gullidge, Anca Florescu-Mitchell
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Proposed translations
fewer than xx percent... have ...
However, I do feel this might be a more natural and idiomatic way of expressing the idea in EN.
Depending on the tone of the rest of the text, in some situations, one might even say "not even xx percent... have ..."
| agree |
Francis Marche
9 mins
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Merci, Francis !
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| agree |
Carol Gullidge
: "Fewer than" is more correct EN than "less than" here, although I'm not sure that correct grammar is what is required here, given that - in typical Parisian colloquial style - the "n" part of the negative is missing (Il n'y a pas…)
28 mins
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Thanks, Carol! Well yes... though converting a typical idiomatic usage in one language into an actual grammatical error in another is perhaps inadvisable. After all, the omission of 'ne' is well accepted in very many common expressions.
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| agree |
Duncan Moncrieff
2 hrs
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Thanks, Duncan!
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| agree |
Jennifer White
: agree that "fewer" is correct, although sadly using "less" wrongly is heard daily on TV and radio.
3 hrs
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Thanks, Jennifer!
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| agree |
Sheri P
10 hrs
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Thanks, Sheri!
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| agree |
Jean-Claude Gouin
18 hrs
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Merci, J-C !
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there are less than xx percent which have
| agree |
SilvijaG
32 mins
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| neutral |
Carol Gullidge
: agree with the meaning, but not with the use of either "less" or "which". See http://www.theguardian.com/guardian-observer-style-guide-t and scroll down to "that or which". Sorry, one of my pet hates, but then it could be that grammar is irrelevant here…?
1 hr
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Carol - you are so right! Fewer, indeed, applies to all things quantifiable - and my journalism training should have told me "that" rather than "which". My intentions, however, in pointing the asker in the right direction, were sincere.
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France
36 years experience on 4 continents
Native in: French 
, English
Works in: English to French, French to English
hardly
"there are hardly XX per cent ..."
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Note added at 1 hr (2014-10-12 14:37:20 GMT)
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It's not obsolete unless you regard XXth century French as "obsolete".
| agree |
writeaway
: everyday French, not obsolete and not literary. or barely xx %
9 mins
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| agree |
Tony M
: I agree with W/A that 'barely' would be better here than 'hardly'; there isn't such a one-for-one equivalence (it could also be 'guère') — 'barely' here would better convey the 'not even quite...' idea that 'hardly' doesn't really.
22 mins
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Interesting : barely is "à peine", less definitely under the figure than "hardly"/"il n'y a pas".
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Discussion
Oh, but another thing was the small number of apartments _with bathrooms_ if this version were correct. Maybe that was the main thing that threw me off the scent.
And I think that your confusion may lie in the fact that the "ne" is missing from "Il n'y a pas…", which is typical Parisian - or at least it was in my days there! If this had been present, I imagine you would have been in no doubt about the intended meaning
It is Zazie, indeed. Reading it as a result of Modiano's getting the Nobel prize this year... :-)