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Il va falloir changer la pièce.
eel vah faa-lwaar shah-zhay lah peeYESS. Click below to hear this.*
We’re going to have to replace the part.
This could be some pretty annoying news, though it is still better than “it’s irretrievably broken”. But it does provide us with some French-flavored fun.
For starters, changer doesn’t always exactly mean to change. Sometimes it means to exchange, as it does here. That applies to money, too: when you hand over your dollars and get euros back, that transaction is un change.
And then there’s la pièce, which could be a play (theater) or a coin, but here means a part, or a spare part (which is also calledune pièce détachée). If you’re not paying attention, you won’t know whether to exchange currency, rewrite the play, or get the spark plugs replaced. Context is everything!
To say il va falloir (plus a verb in the infinitive, or dictionary, form) is to express the necessity of doing a thing, but not the person who must do it.
English is funny that way; most of the expressions in that category that we use regularly specify who is responsible for accomplishing the task. You must, he needs to, I have to are all examples of such phrases. But French has this very useful verb falloir, which really means to be necessary to. In the present tense, that’s il faut; in the future, il va falloir, it will be necessary to.
So today’s phrase softens the bluntness of the diagnosis: your car, lawn mower, or what-have-you needs a new part, and the service manager is trying to avoid blaming you for letting the problem go too long. Of course that makes you feel much better, and you agree readily to the repair without an argument. Win-win. You get a working appliance, and the mechanic collects his fee. We all go home reasonably happy, even though your wallet is no longer quite so light on its feet. If wallets can be supposed to have feet, of course.
*Some mobile phones, such as Blackberries, won’t display the audio player. If no player appears, here’s an alternative link to the audio file:
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J’ai fait défaut à notre rendez-vous…
zhay fay day-FOH ah nuh-truh rah-day-VOO… (Pas de fichier audio aujourd’hui.)
I missed our appointment…
C’est la première fois depuis deux ans d’écriture, si je ne me trompe pas, que je fasse défaut à notre rendez-vous quotidien, et je vous en demande bien pardon. Comme excuse je vous offre une journée très chargée de courses et sans temps libre. C’est une pauvre excuse, je vous l’admets, mais je compte sur votre indulgence.
Pour demain, je vous promets un nouvel article pour vous amuser et vous instruire.
À demain, donc, et merci !
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On a fait un essai de route.
aw nah fay uh nay-say DROOT. Click below to hear this.*
We did a test drive.
More than one, in real life! Yesterday we did two, and today we plan two or three, depending on time. We are test-driving cars, of course. We need a new one.
In English, it’s not clear whether test is a noun or a verb. It could be either. Drive could also be either, but to go for a drive suggests a very different sort of trip than a test drive. So let’s assume that drive is a noun here.
And that’s English for you. Line up a bunch of nouns and declare that some (perhaps most) of them are being used as adjectives. Thus a test drive becomes adjective + noun.
In French, we have two nouns (the French language likes nouns, so that’s no surprise), and they are connected by a preposition, that universal fall-back tool. When in doubt, make a prepositional phrase.
And that’s how un essai de route becomes a test drive. It’s a test of the road, which in real life has less to do with the road and more to do with the car.
If you feel so moved, send us the model/year of the car you drive! That might make our decision easier! Merci….
*Some mobile phones, such as Blackberries, won’t display the audio player. If no player appears, here’s an alternative link to the audio file:
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Il a tourné la page.
ee lah toor-nay lah PAHZH. Click below to hear this.*
He has turned over a new leaf.
I know you want to know what he is reading. It must be a real page-turner, right? Only that’s not at all what it’s about.
Turning over a new leaf in English has nothing to do with trees, either. A leaf, in English, is an old-fashioned word for a sheet of paper, and it comes from the Latin folio. In French, a leaf on a tree is called une feuille. Do you see the family resemblance?
In both cases, we are talking about the book of life, if I may use that cliché. When il tourne la page or he turns over a new leaf, he begins a new phase in his life, he makes a life-changing, or at least a game-changing action.
*Some mobile phones, such as Blackberries, won’t display the audio player. If no player appears, here’s an alternative link to the audio file:
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“C’en est fini des boutiques 3 Suisses.”
sah nay fee-nee day boo-teek trwah SWEESS. Click below to hear this.*
It’s over for the 3 Suisses shops.
This was the opening line the other day to an article in LeMonde.fr, and it announced the end of a venerable French tradition. 3 Suisses (yes, it means 3 Swiss people) was what is known in the US as a “catalog store”: a store where you go to consult the catalog, order your goods, maybe sign up for a credit card.
Sound old-fashioned? Yes, it was, and that’s why the company has announced that they are closing all 35 of the 3 Suisses shops in France and laying off all 149 of those employees. They will focus their entire effort on e-commerce (same word in French), which already represents about 66% of their sales.
Some of the stores have already been spoken for by new renters, upon whom 3 Suisses has laid the condition of offering jobs to the former 3 Suisses employees.
As for the expression, it’s another of those phrases you can’t really dissect. The en has no discernable grammatical function; it’s just there. When you say C’en est fini de …, you are saying … is done for, is over with. The subject of the English sentence becomes the object of the preposition in the French one.
Finally, if you want to read the full story about 3 Suisses, you’ll find it at this link.
*Some mobile phones, such as Blackberries, won’t display the audio player. If no player appears, here’s an alternative link to the audio file:
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Elle a été prise en flagrant délit.
ay lah ay-tay pree zah flaa-grah day-LEE. Click below to hear this.*
She was caught redhanded.
Contrary to popular opinion, en flagrant délit (in Latin, in flagrante delicto) does not refer solely to adultery. It can also include stealing a lipstick in the drugstore, or copying from someone else’s exam paper, or spray-painting my house with graffiti.
Délit has nothing to do with delight, either, even though breaking the law (or the rules) may sometimes be fun. No, délit comes from a form of that Latin word up there in the last paragraph, and means unlawful or illicit.
In fact, believe it or not, this expression is related to yesterday’s post, which you can read here. In French, un tort is simply a wrong. It’s quite another matter in American law. Click on this post to read more about that.
In French, a tort is un délit, or un délit civil if you want to be more specific. That’s the legal equivalent of a tort. Do you want another related English word to help you remember? It’s delinquent. I bet you’ll remember it now!
*Some mobile phones, such as Blackberries, won’t display the audio player. If no player appears, here’s an alternative link to the audio file:
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Il dépense à tort et à travers.
eel day-pah sah taw ray ah trah-VAIR. Click below to hear this.*
He spends wildly.
Sounds a bit as if he’s doing some crazy thinking! After all, if penser means to think, and dé- means un-, then dépenser must mean to unthink, right?
Nah. You’re smarter than that. Dépenser means to spend. The only connection with thinking is whether you think before you spend. Which, apparently, this fellow does not do.
À tort et à travers is a fixed expression, but each half of it also exists independently. À tort means wrongly, and can be used with verbs like dire, faire, and many others.
À travers means across, through, as in à travers champs, across the fields or across country.
Together, the expression means wildly, crazily, with the implication that he does not quite have all his senses about him. He spends without thinking whether he needs this or not. He spends because some part of him needs to do it, or just because he can.
*Some mobile phones, such as Blackberries, won’t display the audio player. If no player appears, here’s an alternative link to the audio file:
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Je fais chou blanc.
zhuh fay shoo blah. Click below to hear this.*
My mind is a blank.
Blanc means both
white and blank. You knew that, right? And Le chou is cabbage. I suspect you already knew that, too.
So this is a frightening thought. I am making white cabbage. Really? What does cabbage have to do with the fact that My mind is a blank?
A blank mind feels more like fluffy teddy bear stuffing than cabbage, if you ask me. Uncooked cabbage is crunchy. It has texture and character and a distinctive taste. Cooked cabbage is bland, mushy, and dull, and it’s not something I want my brain to resemble.
Come to think of it, maybe that’s the point. I’m throwing out the mental cabbage and going shopping for some ideas. See you later!
*Some mobile phones, such as Blackberries, won’t display the audio player. If no player appears, here’s an alternative link to the audio file:
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Paul s’est marié avec Jeanne. Paul a marié Hélène.
pole say maa-reeYAY aa-veck zhahn. po lah maa-reeYAY ay-LENN. Click below to hear this.*
Paul married Jeanne. Paul married Hélène.
Just when you thought you were done with marriage, another puzzle to solve! Is Paul a bigamist? A cad? A serial monogamist? That’s the big question for today.
Se marier avec means to marry, that is, to get married to. The preposition avec is a nice touch (not that it’s a stylistic choice; it’s required) in the French, because it appears to express a greater degree of reciprocity than the English to. So Paul and Jeanne have said their vows, and they are now husband and wife.
Where does that leave Hélène? Ah. The following week, in the very same place, Paul a marié Hélène. That tells us that Paul is probably one of two things, neither of which was listed in the first paragraph above.
He is either a member of the clergy, or a justice of the peace. We can tell because marier is not a reflexive verb here. Hélène was the bride (also know as the direct object of the verb), and I’ll leave you to decide on the name of her beloved. Paul officiated at the ceremony, which was attended by many, all of whom dabbed at their eyes with their hankies at appropriate moments. It was a lovely service, wasn’t it? They look so happy together!
*Some mobile phones, such as Blackberries, won’t display the audio player. If no player appears, here’s an alternative link to the audio file:
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Ils se sont mariés. Ils sont mariés.
eel suh saw maar-YAY. eel saw maar-YAY. Click below to hear this.*
They got married. They are married.
There’s love in the air!
But what’s the difference between these two very similar sentences?
The first is a reflexive verb. Se marier means to get married. Note that this sentence does not necessarily specify that they married each other; they each went through a wedding ceremony, but this sentence could be about two (or fifty) people (men or women) who married someone. That’s all. Context will have to clarify the rest for you. Maybe it’s one of those mass ceremonies you read about occasionally? Or “Seven Brides for Seven Brothers”?
The second sentence is the verb to be with a past participle being used as an adjective. It describes the current civil status of the people in question. Are they married or single? Ils sont mariés. Keep your hands off, girls and boys, they are off-limits.
Remember that ils does not distinguish whether the group consists of all males or some males and some females. Even one man in a group of women is enough to call for the use of the masculine plural pronoun. Sorry, gals, that’s just the way the language works. Make your peace with it.
*Some mobile phones, such as Blackberries, won’t display the audio player. If no player appears, here’s an alternative link to the audio file:
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Je compte être sur pied sous peu.
zhuh kaw tett-truh sewr peeYAY soo puh. Click below to hear this.*
I expect to be back on my feet shortly.
Prepositions are everything. Today we consider what they can do to your feet.
Être sur pied means to be back on one’s feet, after being sick or injured. Or it can be used figuratively to refer to achieving financial stability after a period of not-so-much.
If you want to arrive somewhere on foot, which is what the French looks like, you will have to do it à pied. That’s on foot with any verb of motion: for example, Je vais au travail à pied, I walk to work.
Now if you trip and fall and have a bruise on your foot, you will need to say J’ai un bleu au pied. That’s right, a bruise is un bleu, in spite of the rainbow of colors that may result from a fall. Only the bleu counts.
In today’s phrase, Je compte means I am expecting or I am counting on. A preposition in English, but none in French. As for before long (“long” in the temporal sense here, a long time), the French is rendered by Sous peu, literally under little. Don’t ask why, because I can’t tell you. It’s a perfectly good preposition, only not the one you expected. Just say it and don’t argue.
*Some mobile phones, such as Blackberries, won’t display the audio player. If no player appears, here’s an alternative link to the audio file:
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Il a été mis à pied.
ee lah ay-tay mee zah peeYAY. Click below to hear this.*
He was suspended.
Caught in passing! A Frenchman was fined for injure publique, which is the approximate equivalent of libel in American law. He posted some X-rated and highly uncomplimentary words on Facebook, about his boss, his workplace, his job, and a lot more, and it was judged by a French court to go beyond the bounds of free speech. (Yes, they have that in France too.) He did cite extenuating circumstances.
In addition to the fine, our friend was mis à pied for five days. This means he was suspended from his job functions. No, he was not put on foot, which is what the French looks like, even though he probably had to walk out of the office on foot. They don’t issue golf carts to suspended employees.
If you really insist on knowing what Mr. Anonymous posted, here’s a link to the article on lemonde.fr. You’re going to have to decipher it in French. I choose not to dignify his choice of language here.
*Some mobile phones, such as Blackberries, won’t display the audio player. If no player appears, here’s an alternative link to the audio file:
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T’es un vrai rabat-joie, toi!
tay uh vray rah-bah zhwah, twah! Click below to hear this.*
You are a real killjoy!
Or spoilsport, or wet blanket. Any one of them will do. This epithet belongs to the fellow who mentions the chicken recall just as your fork is poised over Aunt Sally’s to-die-for chicken salad. It’s for the grouch who never smiles at a party and can’t wait to go home. It’s for the gal who loudly points out the moral pit we are tumbling into when we turn on the dance music.
I don’t believe in fun so you shouldn’t have any!
Rabattre means to beat back (an attack), to fold back (the blankets, a piece of fabric), and so on. So un rabat-joie is a person who beats back any possibility of joy in a group.
Just don’t confuse un rabat-joie with un abat-jour. They may look similar on the page, and sound somewhat alike, but they are at opposite poles. The fellow wearing the abat-jour on his head (that’s a lampshade, pronounced ah-bah-ZHOOR) is the one who thinks everyone should have as much fun as he is having. The rabat-joie thinks no one should have as much fun as they think they are having.
*Some mobile phones, such as Blackberries, won’t display the audio player. If no player appears, here’s an alternative link to the audio file:
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Le camp Obama s’en prend à Romney.
luh kah oh-bah-mah sah prah ah ROM-nee. Click below to hear this.*
The Obama camp is going after Romney.
No surprise, this! We are in an election year in the US. Everyone is blaming everyone else for everything that has gone wrong, is going wrong, and might go wrong in the future, throughout the country. But I didn’t choose this saying in order to discuss politics, but for the French.
S’en prendre à means to attack, to blame, to go after, and so on. Don’t try to dissect this verbal expression; it can’t be done. Just try to memorize one sentence using the expression, and you’ll be able to figure it out from there. If you don’t want your reminder sentence to be so political, try this one: Je m’en prends à lui. That’s I blame him.
In case you want to read the news article whose headline I borrowed, you’ll find it at this link.
*Some mobile phones, such as Blackberries, won’t display the audio player. If no player appears, here’s an alternative link to the audio file:
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Je bois un thé au gingembre avec du miel.
zhuh bwah uh tay oh zhaa-zhah-brah-veck dew meeYELL. Click below to hear this.*
I’m drinking ginger and honey tea .
Let’s sort this out. The tea itself is ginger-flavored, but I sweetened it with honey. English doesn’t always make that distinction, but French prefers to.
If the tea is made from a specific substance (like ginger), you say à la, au, or aux. If you are adding something to it (like sugar, milk, or honey), you say avec (du, de la, des).
That’s the rule of thumb, anyway! There’s always an exception, isn’t there? The obvious one is le café au lait, but there are many others. Did I say this is a very loose rule?
And while we’re at it, there can be a distinction between Je prends un thé and Je bois un thé. The first is preferred when you are ordering your tea, and the second when you are in the act of drinking it.
Now, if you will excuse me, I have to finish my tea and go back to bed. My week-old cold has just decided to go full-blown and turn into my annual case of bronchitis.
À lundi!
*Some mobile phones, such as Blackberries, won’t display the audio player. If no player appears, here’s an alternative link to the audio file:
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Il a été mis en garde à vue.
ee lah ay-tay mee zah gaar-dah-VEW. Click below to hear this.*
He was taken into police custody.
Friday the 13th: it’s his unlucky day! In French, this means that he was put in “keep-in-sight”. After all, when the police bring someone in, they want to make sure that person isn’t going to make for the nearest airport, or go berserk and grab an officer’s service revolver. Save that for the TV crime-show writers.
So keep ‘em where you can see ‘em, en garde à vue. The verb garder does mean to guard, but it also means to keep, as in Gardez les clefs hors de sa portée. Keep the keys out of his reach. If you don’t, he might make a break for it after all!
*Some mobile phones, such as Blackberries, won’t display the audio player. If no player appears, here’s an alternative link to the audio file:
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J’ai les crocs!
zhay lay CROW! Click below to hear this.*
I’m starving!
Well, not literally, I hope. But that’s what we say when we can’t wait to sink our teeth into something substantial…burger, pizza, your favorite comfort food.
And those teeth turn out to be the whole point. Very pointy indeed. In fact, les crocs are those sharp teeth your dog uses to catch…you don’t want to know what. On you and me, they are called canine teeth because they are the human equivalent of your sweet little doggie’s flesh-tearing teeth.
And that’s why J’ai les crocs means I’m really hungry. You just really want to tear into something yummy. But maybe not rabbit stew–not your dog’s recipe, anyway.
*Some mobile phones, such as Blackberries, won’t display the audio player. If no player appears, here’s an alternative link to the audio file:
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Je la lui ai donnée.
zhuh lah lwee ay duh-NAY. Click below to hear this.*
I gave it to him/her.
Today is a story about him, her, and it. Two its, actually. Let’s give them names: Pierre, Hélène, la lettre, and le livre. And my generosity, since I am doing a lot of giving today.
The feature we are looking for here is when to make the past participle agree, and with what. Here are all of the possible combinations of these words (I hope!):
J’ai donné le livre à Pierre.
Je lui ai donné le livre.
Je l’ai donné à Pierre.
Je le lui ai donné.
J’ai donné le livre à Hélène.
Je lui ai donné le livre.
Je l’ai donné à Hélène.
Je le lui ai donné.
J’ai donné la lettre à Pierre.
Je lui ai donné la lettre.
Je l’ai donnée à Pierre.
Je la lui ai donnée.
J’ai donné la lettre à Hélène.
Je lui ai donné la lettre.
Je l’ai donnée à Hélène.
Je la lui ai donnée.
Three things to notice: (1) Agreement only takes place when the direct object comes before the verb. (2) Agreement is only with the direct object, never the indirect object or the subject. (3) And, of course, remember that lui can refer to either Pierre or Hélène.
It makes no difference who is doing the giving, or any other action. “I” could be male or female. Hélène and Pierre actually aren’t important either. It’s le livre and la lettre that matter, and only when they are referred to as le or la.
*Some mobile phones, such as Blackberries, won’t display the audio player. If no player appears, here’s an alternative link to the audio file:
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Ce n’est pas un argument, c’est de l’ergoterie!
snay pah uh naar-gew-mah, sayd lair-guh-TREE! Click below to hear this.*
That’s not an argument, it’s quibbling!
Your friend loves to argue, but you don’t think much of the arguments he makes. They are specious, false, petty, misguided. Not to mention that he brings up the same quibbles over and over.
This is what you say to him when you get tired of listening to him.
Ergoter takes us all the way back to the medieval scholastic philosophers, who were famous for their elaborate (and passionate) arguments about such topics as how many angels could dance in the head of a pin. They addressed these momentous discussions in Latin, and took their logic seriously. So they must have said ergo quite a bit, Latin for therefore. It follows (logically) that a verb should have been constructed on that stem, so as to talk about people who talk about such senseless topics. And l’ergoterie, of course, is the practice of dwelling on these things.
In fact, you will often encounter the verb in the expression ergoter sur des vétilles, which literally means to quibble about ribbons. Why ribbons? Because they are mere shreds of fabric, a very minor element in the adornment of a person’s costume.
*Some mobile phones, such as Blackberries, won’t display the audio player. If no player appears, here’s an alternative link to the audio file:
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Escrocs et escroqueries
ess-cro ay ess-cruh-KREE. Click below to hear this.*
Scams, scammers and scamming.
I’ve been playing around in the etymological sand pile this morning. I’m all covered with words. Would you help me brush off?
Thanks. That’s better. Oh, here are a couple that stuck. Shall we talk about them?
Un escroc (silent c at the end of the word; don’t be taken in) is a scam, a swindle. It’s also the person who practices such scams. L’escroquerie is the general practice of scamming. (Don’t be taken in!)
Where did such an odd-looking pair of words come from?
Surprise! They are from the 16th-century Italian scroccare, which means to unhook. Un escroc uses fraudulent means to relieve you of your possessions–to unhook them from you, literally or figuratively.
And that sounds a lot like a crook to me. The English word crook comes from a Middle English word, crok, meaning hook. It referred to anything with or reminding one of a hooked shape, from a shepherd’s staff to a bishop’s crozier to…well, a thief.
And that Middle English word is likely connected to the Old French word croc or croche, meaning–you guessed it–hook.
But here’s the kicker. In English, we have this odd word escrow, which sounds and looks a good deal like escroc. Are they related? Is my bank a crook collecting my property tax and my mortgage interest? Not at all!
Don’t be taken in! Despite the similarity in the two words, they are not related at all. Escrow comes from a completely different Old French word: escroul orescroue, which also gave us the English word scroll. Originally, an escrow was a deed held by a third party until certain conditions were met. By extension, the bank holds your property tax in escrow until you (well, they, on your behalf) pay them.
Now wasn’t that fun?
*Some mobile phones, such as Blackberries, won’t display the audio player. If no player appears, here’s an alternative link to the audio file:
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