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From: "Pierre Hallet" <pierre.hallet@skynet.be>
Newsgroups: alt.languages.english
Subject: Re: gaz factory
Date: Tue, 4 Dec 2007 19:27:33 +0100
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kkwweett :
> I'm French and I'm looking for an english translation
> of a french expression ("usine a gaz") which is
> literally [gasworks] but which means a working device
> or machine so complicated that it is highly probable
> that it crashes very soon and that it is almost a
> miracle that it is still working.
> Is there an equivalent phrase in English ?
My /Robert-Collins/ proposes "huge labyrinthine system".
des anglophones natifs.)
You might have also "Rube Goldberg machines" (should this
not ring any bell, just Google it). But then I suspect it
in French to refer to organizations or to administrative
processes, not to physical devices as such. I would say
that a Rube Goldberg machine works--in an absurdly complex
unlikely constant supply of miracles.)
Pierre Hallet
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