Testing a claim

The sixth entry is garder une vue d’ensemble sur, and the noun buried in the middle of it is one an English reader owns and has quietly shrunk. « Ensemble » came to us twice and arrived narrow both times: a group of musicians or actors who perform together, and a set of clothes chosen to match. Neither is what the word does at home. In French l’ensemble is the plain, everyday name for the whole of something. L’ensemble du personnel is every member of staff and not a troupe of them; l’ensemble des données is all the data; dans l’ensemble means on the whole; la théorie des ensembles is set theory; and un grand ensemble is a post-war housing estate. The adverb is the same word standing on its own, travailler ensemble. So une vue d’ensemble is an overview, the look that takes in everything at once, and the entry here is about holding that view over a whole pile of files. Whoever renders l’ensemble des dossiers as « the ensemble of files » has turned a caseload into a chamber orchestra.