Cindy Radenac (X) (asker) Mar 2, 2012:

What about "réserve"? I think "réserve" like "produits de réserve" or "échantillons de réserve" could be fine. What do you think?

Tony M Mar 2, 2012:

Right! NOW it makes sense! I believe it is a chemical storage room / retainer storage room / sample storage room.

They're either talking about one room that is used for all these things, or possibly more likely, in general terms (specifications etc. for) rooms used for these purposes.

As far as 'retainer' is concerned, I feel sure this is just their jargon word for 'that which is retained' — it's not really grammatically correct, but is just the sort of way people (mis!) use language when inventing jargon!

Cf. for example 'shopper' — not only a person who shops, but also a type of bag used by a shopper for shopping; in the olden days, we'd call it a 'shopping bag'!

They seem for some reason to be making a specific distinction between those items that are retained (in case needed for future analysis?) and actual samples. I suppose this might be the case if it were, for example, a chemical manufacturer, who takes both samples of each batch for immediate checking, and also other samples from each batch for 'archiving' in case of future need.

Cindy Radenac (X) (asker) Mar 2, 2012:

Unfortunately no... It is not an error of punctuation. Here is another occurrence at the beginning of the document (powerpoint):
"Areas included in this document:
*Chemical, retainer and sample storage
*Bench top (GC, Titration, balance)
*Sample preparation area"
etc.

Tony M Mar 2, 2012:

Punctuation? What is the provenance of your document? Does it perhaps come from OCR? I find those commas odd — as GM has intimated, I'd expect it to be 'retainer samples' without a comma, and hence probably without the first comma either.

Cindy Radenac (X) (asker) Mar 2, 2012:

Contexte Voici un extrait du paragraphe :
Retention
Sufficient quantities should be retained for as long as useful or per local business requirements. Dispose of samples beyond their retention date.

Ce qui me dérange, c'est que cette section n'évoque pas le matériel mais les produits. On parle bien de verrerie (glassware) et de récipients (containers) plus loin dans le document dans une section intitulée "Sample preparation area".