Idleness-Oisiveté

03/04/2024

NE PAS ÊTRE et ÊTRE TROP

Cette semaine nous voyons deux mots français : Le 1er n'existe pas et le 2e,semblerait-il, ne devrait pas exister.

Pour le mot qui manque à l'appel, il faut se référer aux Anglais qui cherchaient un mot pour remplacer 𝑝𝑒𝑛 𝑛𝑎𝑚𝑒,c'est-à-dire, le pseudonyme qu'un auteur emploi pour cacher son identité. Bien sûr pour trouver des mots sophistiqués les Anglaisse tournent vers le français et ils ont trouvé 𝒏𝒐𝒎 𝒅𝒆 𝒑𝒍𝒖𝒎𝒆. Le problème, c'est que cette expression n'existait pas en français où on parlait plutôt d'un 𝑛𝑜𝑚 𝑑𝑒 𝑔𝑢𝑒𝑟𝑟𝑒. Ce sont les Anglais, qui, trouvant ceci trop militaire et pas assez littéraire, l'ont corrigée! Nous avons donc une expression d'origine française qui n'existe en français que par l'emprunt à l'anglais.

Le second mot, c'est 𝒔𝒖𝒑𝒆𝒓𝒇𝒆𝒕𝒂𝒕𝒐𝒊𝒓𝒆, c.-à-d. superflu. C'est un mot à 10 piasses qui veut dire 𝑞𝑢𝑖 𝑠'𝑎𝑗𝑜𝑢𝑡𝑒 𝑖𝑛𝑢𝑡𝑖𝑙𝑒𝑚𝑒𝑛𝑡 𝑎̀ 𝑞𝑢𝑒𝑙𝑞𝑢𝑒 𝑐ℎ𝑜𝑠𝑒 N'est-ce pas que ce mot qui sonne si prétentieux est lui-même superflu? Il faut regarder de plus près. Superfétatoire vient de superfétation. La racine au milieu fait référence non pas au fromage, mais au fœtus. "Conception d'un fœtus, lorsqu'il y en a déjà un dans la matrice." Dans http://xn--passeportsant-nhb.net/ on explique: "Les deux fœtus vont s’implanter dans l’utérus et évoluer en différé. Ils auront donc des poids et des tailles différents.Le phénomène est d’autant plus exceptionnel que la modification de l’endomètre, également appelée muqueuse utérine, n’est généralement pas compatible avec l’implantation d’un autre œufdans l’utérus. En effet, dans les jours qui suivent la fécondation, celui-ci va s’épaissir avec l’apparition de vaisseaux sanguins et cellules pour offrir un environnement favorable à la nidation."À la lumière de ses explications je ne comprends pas pourquoi ce mot prix le sens d 'inutile. Il devrait plutôt vouloir dire:
“Réussi malgré des obstacles inouïs”
“Accompli malgré les empêchements énormes”
"Super rare”
“Qui se bat pour la vie, la survie”

02/25/2024

Ⓤⓟⓢⓔⓣ

Those who have read my Facebook profile will know that in my 10 years of taking calls at a call centre the first lesson I learned was to 𝑎𝑐𝑘𝑛𝑜𝑤𝑙𝑒𝑑𝑔𝑒 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑒𝑚𝑜𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛. And by far the most frequent emotion is described by today's word, which, of course, has no equivalent in French, except when you're dyspeptic. Furthermore 𝐮𝐩𝐬𝐞𝐭 can have a range of meetings extending from very sad to very angry. I've seen bouleversé suggested as an equivalent, however, there is no way that an irate customer can be described as being distressed or overwhelmed, which are accurate back translations of bouleversé. (You could be 𝐮𝐩𝐬𝐞𝐭 or distressed at losing a pet).

𝑰𝒓𝒓𝒊𝒕𝒆́ comes close but it focuses on the cause rather than the effect and when someone is 𝐮𝐩𝐬𝐞𝐭 it's not the time to analyze but to recognize.

It's so easy in English : 𝐼 𝑐𝑎𝑛 𝑠𝑒𝑒 𝑦𝑜𝑢'𝑟𝑒 𝑢𝑝𝑠𝑒𝑡, 𝑡𝑒𝑙𝑙 𝑚𝑒 𝑎𝑏𝑜𝑢𝑡 𝑖𝑡. whereas in French you're reduced to awkward workarounds: 𝐽𝑒 𝑣𝑜𝑖𝑠 𝑞𝑢𝑒 𝑣𝑜𝑢𝑠 𝑒̂𝑡𝑒𝑠 𝑓𝑎̂𝑐ℎ𝑒́, 𝑑𝑖𝑡𝑒𝑠-𝑚𝑜𝑖 𝑐𝑒 𝑞𝑢'𝑖𝑙 𝑦 𝑎. 𝑉𝑜𝑢𝑠 𝑛'𝑒̂𝑡𝑒𝑠 𝑑𝑒́𝑓𝑖𝑛𝑖𝑡𝑖𝑣𝑒𝑚𝑒𝑛𝑡 𝑝𝑎𝑠 𝑑𝑒 𝑏𝑜𝑛𝑛𝑒 ℎ𝑢𝑚𝑒𝑢𝑟, 𝑞𝑢'𝑒𝑠𝑡-𝑐𝑒 𝑞𝑢𝑖 𝑠𝑒 𝑝𝑎𝑠𝑠𝑒? 𝐶'𝑒𝑠𝑡 𝑒́𝑣𝑖𝑑𝑒𝑛𝑡 𝑞𝑢𝑒 𝑣𝑜𝑢𝑠 𝑛'𝑒̂𝑡𝑒𝑠 𝑝𝑎𝑠 𝑐𝑜𝑛𝑡𝑒𝑛𝑡, 𝑟𝑎𝑐𝑜𝑛𝑡𝑒𝑧...

02/21/2024

𝙬𝙝𝙖𝙩𝙚𝙫𝙚𝙧
One hesitates to add an exclamation mark, so much the expression embodies the opposite of emphasis, a kind of 𝑠𝑝𝑟𝑒𝑧𝑧𝑎𝑡𝑢𝑟𝑎. The 𝗼𝗽𝗽𝗼𝘀𝗶𝘁𝗲 𝗼𝗳 𝗲𝗺𝗽𝗵𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗰 is a word sorely lacking in English. I asked chatGPT for candidates and this is the list I got:
"unemphatic," "mild," "weak," "ambiguous," "nonassertive," "guarded," "equivocal," "hesitant," "nonemphatic," "understated," "tentative," "uncertain," "undecided," "unsure," "feeble," "half-hearted," "reticent," "inarticulate," "quiet," "reserved," "retiring," "shy," "silent," "taciturn," "uncommunicative," "dishonest," "introverted," "modest," "tactful," "written," "diffident," "doubtful," "irresolute," "cautious," "iffy," "reluctant," "disinclined," "faltering," "indecisive," "unassuming," "vacillating," "vacillatory," "not confident," "unassured," "unconvinced," "open-minded," "receptive," "timid," "unassertive," "unobtrusive," "qualified," "vague," "questionable," "conditional," "equivocal," "indefinite," "implied," "exceptional," "tentative," "ambiguous," "hesitant," "inexact," "hypothetical," "indistinct," "oracular," "sketchy," "loose," "indefinable," "rough," "faint," "incomplete," "hazy," "superficial," "bewildering," "elusive," "unformed," "blurry," "amphibological," "obfuscatory," "unexplicit," "blurred," "inadequate," "puzzling," "unintelligible," "generalized," "unspecified," "non-specific," "lackadaisical," "languorous," "lazy," "lethargic," "listless," "otiose," "passive," "pococurante," and "sluggish"

I was as impressed by the sheer quantity of words as much as by the total uselessness most of them and the inaccuracy of the rest.

What about "whatever!" in French? Well, since English speakers can't even pin down its meaning, the French are taking no chances and have adopted it as is, with both connotation and intonation. It's commonly used by people who aren't troubled by its meaning or lack thereof because they can't even string two English words together. It may come out as 𝒘𝒉𝒂𝒕'𝒔 𝒆𝒗𝒆𝒓, but the facial expression and the hand gestures will be spot on.

01/13/2024

𝗦𝗵𝗮𝗹𝗹𝗼𝘄
Pour ce billet inaugural, je vous présente le mot le plus vieux de ma collection, celui qui est à l'origine de ce projet : 𝘴𝘩𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘰𝘸.

But first I have to decide how to use French and English in each post. There's no point in translating every word because anyone reading this blog has to be functionally bilingual. Wenn du nur Deutsch sprichst, hast du einfach Pech gehabt!

Dans le doute, vous pouvez toujours copier-coller tout le texte dans DeepL.com. Tout sera traduit dans la langue de votre choix.

shallow has no equivalent in French. They will say not deep, or peu profond. That's not exactly the same as shallow. Eau peu profonde works_well enough for shallow water. But what about a shallow grave?

Et on cherche en vain pour traduire 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘮𝘢𝘯 𝘪𝘴 𝘴𝘰 𝘴𝘩𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘰𝘸 au sens figuré. Comment peut-on être extrêmement peu profond? On peut dire que 𝘲𝘶𝘦𝘭𝘲𝘶'𝘶𝘯 𝘦𝘴𝘵 𝘴𝘶𝘱𝘦𝘳𝘧𝘪𝘤𝘪𝘦𝘭 au sens figuré fait référence à la surface tandis qu'avec shallow on fait référence à ce qui est en dessous de la surface.

There is even a noun corresponding to our word as in 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘴𝘩𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘰𝘸𝘴 which translates as haut-fond. Selon le Littré "un haut-fond (pl. « des hauts-fonds ») désigne la partie du fond de la mer où la profondeur de l'eau est faible par rapport à celle des points avoisinants. En océanographie, un haut-fond est un sommet sous-marin recouvert d'une eau peu profonde et dangereux pour la navigation."
So, in French the water is shallow because the bottom of the body of water is very high! It's certainly a different point of view.

01/07/2024

Lost in Translation / Mots incertains au sens fuyant

04/25/2021

Kid riding bike on sidewalk bumps in to man. "Hey, you brat, you weren't looking where you were going!" "Yes I was, as***le!"

04/03/2021

https://bit.ly/39BolH0

SAN FRANCISCO—Scoffing at his ignorance and petulance, sources confirmed Thursday that local man Clint Williams, despite being a resident of the most affluent country in the history of the world, had the nerve to complain about being homeless. “I mean, this is the wealthiest, most powerful natio...

04/02/2021

[English follows]
Alors ce matin, chez Ferlucci, mon café local, deux jeunes femmes faisaient la queue derrière moi pendant que j'attendais mon latte. Je les ai regardées et leur ai souri. Elles m'ont renvoyé un regard hostile : "Qu'est-ce que tu veux, vieux cochon ?"
Bien sûr ! Le masque !
Ils ont dû penser que je les fixais, que je les lorgnais. J'ai tendance à dévisager les gens. Je sais que c'est impoli. Un sourire amical n'est pas impoli. Mais avec le masque, c'est devenu impossible.
Les hommes avaient l'habitude de soulever leur chapeau lorsqu'ils rencontraient quelqu'un. Nous avons besoin d'une nouvelle forme de salutation pour la pandémie : vous laissez tomber votre masque juste le temps de sourire.

So at Ferlucci, my local cafe, two young women were in line behind me this morning as I waited for my latte. I looked at them and smiled. They looked back at me with hostility: "What do you want you dirty old man?"
Of course! The mask!
They must have thought I was staring at them, ogling. I do tend to stare at people. I know it's impolite. A friendly smile is not impolite. However, with the mask, it's impossible to pull off.
Men used to tip their hats when meeting someone. We need a new greeting for the pandemic: You drop your mask just long enough to smile.

03/21/2021

https://www.theonion.com/sympathetic-police-know-what-it-s-like-to-have-a-bad-da-1846497280?utm_source=TheOnion_Daily_RSS&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=2021-03-18

The Onion brings you all of the latest news, stories, photos, videos and more from America's finest news source.

03/15/2021

ATLANTA—Urging the nation to remain vigilant in its continued commitment to utter despondency, health officials nationwide warned Wednesday that it was still too early for Americans to stop languishing in a state of unceasing despair. “We know it’s been tempting to return to a slightly more po...

03/05/2021

DARTMOOR, ENGLAND—Caught off guard in one of his ratty old goatskin tunics, Bronze Age tribesman Lugu claimed Thursday that he would have dressed in much nicer pelts had he known that scientists would find his preserved body in a bog 4,000 years after selecting the outfit. “Sh*t, I would have pu...