jierbe31

You're very welcome, Emma.
Glad I could help.

catachrest

Sorry, but as a native speaker I must disagree with the opinions posted above. A dogcatcher is exactly what the name implies: a person employed to catch (stray) dogs. Nowadays we'd call them animal control officers, I suppose. "One rank up" means one step higher in a hierarchy (analogy to military or other similar ranked organizations). The speaker is giving a very poor opinion of the 'he' in the sentence, indicating that he is supposed to be a policeman, but is bad at his job and is little better than a dogcatcher. Note that dogcatchers aren't to my knowledge a member of the police ranking system! It's simply a way of saying how poor a policeman the speaker thinks this guy is. Hope that helps.

MikeL

Catachrest is right. The use of the term "rank" may have misled people here. It is not to be taken in the sense of an army or police grade. It simply means "step" - indeed, an alternative expression would be "one step up from" or "one step above". It clearly indicates that the policeman's status is only slightly higher than that of a dogcatcher (or Canine Control Officer as he is probably called nowadays...)

jierbe31

Thanks a lot for your explanation.
I realize you can never outdo a native on such an issue.

emmaprad

Thank you MikeL and Catachrest for your helpful rectifications!
Emma

jackspeese

Cette phrase a un sens perjuratif:

Je suppose qu'il soit flic mais il me parait qu'il ne soit qu'un grade au dessus d'un ramasseur d'animaux, en autres mots, il n'est pas doue d'une grand intelligence, il ne pourrait jamais attraper ni un criminel ni un malfaiteur.

emmaprad

Merci Jackspeese,
le sens est sans faute ça: comme tu le dis, un flic pas trop intelligent.
Encore merci tout le monde!
Emma