légitimité de référence

10:03 Mar 4, 2011 

I have realised that "legitimacy" is a faux ami/over-translation here. The word required was "authority".

08:29 Feb 28, 2011 

I was going to post "legitimacy" when I saw Philippa's comment below, with which I completed agree.

19:13 Feb 27, 2011 

Perhaps as I proceed this may become clearer, but at the moment I have nothing else to go on. However, your various suggestions are nonetheless useful.

19:06 Feb 27, 2011 

rather like a verifiable trail of documents/evidence etc. they are speaking about?

18:28 Feb 27, 2011 

Maybe they need this whole thing to be used as a reference???

18:23 Feb 27, 2011 

of what they actually mean? Why de référence, why not just légitimité? Sounds a bit airbrusho-Stalinistic to me.

17:20 Feb 27, 2011 

Barbara, I think you could just use "legitimacy" by itself here, when you think about its meaning:

"The word legitimacy comes from the Latin word legitimare and it has two uses:
* Legitimacy (political science) is variously defined, but refers in general to the peoples' acceptance of a law, ruling, or a regime itself as valid. This concept has also been applied to other kinds of authority, such as that of an employer hiring workers. The Marxian tradition discusses issues concerning the legitimacy of entire political-economic systems (such as capitalism)."
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?hl=fr&rlz=1G1GG...

So it incorporates the sense of "general acceptance", which is also what the term "de référence" is pointing to, surely. I'm thinking the French is leaning towards the tautological (not unusual!).

But if you do think it needs qualifying, you could try "acknowledged" or "unarguable" maybe? Hope this helps, on a rainy Sunday afternoon!