Photo, below: Do you know what "Fur coat, no knickers" means? Keep reading…
In our French conversation group this week, our friend Monty showed up with a book of colorful French idioms, so we played a guessing game: Nicole threw out the idiom, we guessed (or tried to) what it meant. We also tried to come up with parellel English idioms, but we didn’t do too well on that score.
Want to play? Here are a few idioms, with their literal translations. Their real meaning is down below—no peeking ’til you’ve guessed.
1. Les chiens ne font pas des chats (dogs don’t have cats)
2. Donner de la confiture au cochon ( to give jam to the pigs)
3. Mettre du beurre dans les épinards (to put butter in the spinach)
4. Se croire sorti de la cuisse de Jupiter (to believe one has come out of the thighs of Jupiter)
5. Casser les pieds à quelqu’un (to break someone’s feet)
6. Partir ventre à terre (to leave with your belly to the ground)
7. Tomber sur un os (to fall on a bone)
8. Vous ne pouvez pas être au four et au moulin (you can’t be at the oven and the mill)
Answers:
1. The Apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.
2. To give someone something that they don’t have the ability to appreciate
3. To find a way to make a bit of extra money
4. To have a very high opinion of yourself
5. To bore someone to death
6. To depart in a hurry
7. To encounter a difficulty, hit a snag
8. You can’t do two things at once
In class we had a visiting American, Belinda, plus our resident Brits. Both contributed a couple of great expressions I didn’t know. Belinda, who is from the mid-west, threw out “Big hat, no cattle” (big ego, but all talk), and the Brits had a good one too: “Fur coat, no knickers”. (If you need a translation: knickers,in the Queen’s English, refers to underwear). This expression describes a woman who looks classy, but is in fact a loose woman (and as someone in our group ruefully commented: for some of us, it's "big knickers, no fur coat").
Now, do you have some favorites to share, in any language?
Photo, right: speaking of expressions, I spotted this English one on a French window awning. There must be a story there…
In the COMMENTS: Carol loves snails, and Natalia and Rachel are skipping it all and going straight for les champignons! Marge, using prawns is a great idea, which makes it similar to the the delicious Shrimp Scampi. Susan (of A Small Village in France), is there really a snail farm in your neighborhood? That's worthy of a post! By the way, you'll love her funny post this week on jet lag.
Be sure to check out Jeff Steiner's Americans in France blog. He's done a post on the best views in France. One of them is from Brancion–and if you know where to look, you can see Balleure in the distance!
Haven't ordered your copy yet? Here's more language fun, click on the cover.
10 thoughts on “Your Language Quiz du Jour”
That game sounds like a lot of fun! 🙂
One of my favorites is: Chercher midi à quatorze heures.
No.2, “don’t cast your pearls before swine.”
Regarding your comment on the window-sign: ‘WHY NOT’, we have a road near us in Brittany named: ‘Rue de Pourquoi Pas’- one has to wonder…!
Lynn,once again(!)today’s post is wonderful!
These idioms are GREAT! I have to admit that I missed more than several,but now have plenty of incentive to try to remember any (or all)(LOL) that my brain will absorb.
My belle mere and belle pere had one idiom that was generationally passed down to them(perhaps sounds a trifle disrespectful but was meant in jest):
(a little hard to translate)You seem as bored as a priest with nothing better to do than christen goats!
I work with someone from France. Here is my favorite saying that she uses: “C’est ie petit Jesus en culotte de velours!” Baby Jesus in velvet pants! That says it all, but she uses it for something wonderful and then some, like “icing on the cake”.
I enjoy your posts.
Dottie
This was such a fun post Lynn. I didn’t guess a single one up above so I may “be dumber than sledtracks,” but “every pig gets an acorn now & then” so I better mosey on down the road since “haste makes waste.”
Actually, I don’t use these often but I hear them all the time. If my brain were a bit sharper tonight I’m sure I could come up with a few more! Thanks for the chuckles!
I’ve got a wonderful little book at home called “The Complete Merde” by Genevieve. It’s available on Amazon and is full of wonderful French slang and idioms. As the title suggests, much of the content is a bit too strong to quote on a respectable blog like SFF but there’s still plenty you could repeat in front of your maiden aunt. Example. In France, if something is very expensive, “Ca coute les yeux de la tete” whereas we Brits would say “It cost an arm and a leg”.
My favorite idiom from my childhood was my grandmother’s. She is the only person I’ve ever heard this from. She was on my French side, and I’m wondering if it originates from French. It was,
“you drove your ducks to a poor puddle,” which she would likely have said to me about my choice of men, ha. It means you made a rotten choice. Has anyone else ever heard this one?
Since I moved to Texas I learned that when one is beyond exhausted one may appear “rode hard and put away wet”. Obvious things are “like white on rice”, and dear friends are often called “chicken lips” which I still don’t understand. My neighbor makes barbeque ribs so good “you’ll want to slap your mama”. Mon dieu… les Texans parlent American comme un vache (your choice of country here). 😉
How about the term “to make hay while the sun shines”? I’d say that translates to “seize the day!”