Category: French (français)

Word of the day – plumitif

By Simon

Plumitif [plymitif] nm – penpusher, bureaucrat; scribbler.

I came across today’s word last week at the French conversation group and particularly liked the sound of it. It comes from plume (feather, quill, nib) and is marked as pejorative in the dictionary. Plume comes from the Latin pluma (feather, down), from the Proto-Indo-European *pleus- (to pluck, a feather, fleece), which is also the root of the English word fleece.

Other words and expressions involving plumes include:

  • il y a laissé des plumes (he left some feathers there) – he came off badly, he got his fingers burnt
  • il perd ses plumes (he’s losing his feathers) – he’s going bald
  • elle a la plume facile (she has the easy pen) – writing comes easy to her
  • homme de plume – writer
  • prendre la plume – to write
  • je vis de ma plume – I live by my pen
  • je lui passe la plume – I’ll hand over to him / let him carry on
  • plumeau – feather duster
  • plumer – to pluck; to fleece (a person)
  • déplumer – to pluck
  • se déplumer – to moult, lose one’s feathers; to go bald
  • plumeux – feathery
  • plumier – pencil box/case

A penpusher is defined as an “Un-needed, beaureucratic employee not making any difference and hampering efficiency” [Urban Dictionary] or “someone who has a boring job in an office” [The Free Dictionary]. Are there similar words in other languages?

Xtranormal

By Simon

Today I came across an interesting-looking site called Xtranormal that use text-to-speech and other clever stuff – they call it ‘text-to-movie’ – to make animated films.

You just choose your characters and setting, and then type in the dialogue. You can also play with the cameras, animate the characters, and add other effects.

What interests me particularly about this program is that you can choose voices in a variety of languages, including English, French, German, Spanish, Mandarin, Cantonese and Dutch, and I think this could be a useful language learning and teaching tool.

Here’s a short bilingual (English and Mandarin) film I put together:

[Update] It didn’t accept quite a few of the Chinese characters I tried to use, so you can only use very simple phrases. Here’s another short film in French and English:

Twndis

By Simon

Twndis [‘tʊmdɪs] (nm, pl: twndisau) = funnel – also twnffat [‘tʊmfat]

I discovered the Welsh words twndis and twnffat last night. I’m not sure why the subject of funnels came up in conversation, but these words particularly appealed to me, especially the latter.

This morning I found out that the word tundish is used for funnel in Joyce’s Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, and that it originally meant “a funnel made to fit into the bung of a tun”. A tun is a large cask, but I’m sure you knew that [source]. These days a tundish is sort of funnel used in metal casting, and also in plumbing [source].

Tundish appears to be related to the Welsh word twndis, and the word tun is possibly of Celtic origin: – from the Middle Irish tunna, and the Old Irish toun (hide, skin).

Words for funnel in the Modern Celtic languages come from the same root: as well as twndis in Welsh, there’s tunnadair (funnel, filler, tunning-dish, tunner) in Scottish Gaelic, tonnadóir in Irish, tunneyder in Manx and tum in Breton.

I’m not sure of the etymology of twmffat, but ffat on it’s own means slap or pat, and ffatio means to slap.

Weeds

By Simon

Yesterday I finally started work on my garden, and one of the first things I did was a bit of weeding. The large crop of dandelions and other weeds in my lawn will take quite a while to remove, but in the meantime I thought I’d look at the origins of a few garden-related words.

Weed comes from the Old English word wēod (grass, herb, weed), which is related to the Old High German word wiota (fern), and probably comes from the Proto-Germanic word *weud-. The verb to weed comes from the Late Old English weodian [source].

Words for weed in other languages include: chwynnyn (Welsh), fiaile (Irish), 野草 [yěcǎo – “wild grass”] (Mandarin), mauvaise herbe (French – “bad grass”), 雑草 [zassō – “crude/miscellaneous grass”] (Japanese).

Dandelion comes from the Middle French dent de lion (lit. “lion’s tooth”), a calque translation of the Middle Latin dens leonis – the leaves are shaped a bit like lion’s teeth.

Folk names for dandelion include tell-time, which refers the practice of blowing the seeds – the number of breaths needed supposedly being the hour, and the Middle English and French names piss-a-bed and pissenlit, which refer to its diuretic properties [source].

Haddock and Églefin

By Simon

Haddock / Églefin

Last night I discovered that the French word for haddock is églefin or aiglefin, but when smoked it’s called haddock, which is also spelled hadock and hadot. Other French names for the unsmoked fish include aigrefin, Âne, Ânon, Bourricot and Saint-Pierre.

The French églefin/aiglefin comes from the Latin aeglefinus, which in made up of aegle from the Greek αἴγλη (light, radiance, glory), and finus.

Haddock (Melanogrammus aeglefinus), is apparently also known as offshore hake in English, and the word haddock is thought to come from the Middle English haddok, the Anglio-Norman hadoc and the Old French hadot, the origins of which are uncertain.

Another word I learnt last night was houblon [‘ublɔ̃], which is French for hops (humulus lupulus), and I just like the sound of it.

Carpets and harvests

By Simon

I moved into my new house yesterday and am currently having new carpets fitted, which got me wondering about the origins of the word carpet.

Carpet has been traced back to the Proto-Indo-European root *kerp- (to pluck, gather, harvest) via the Old French carpite (heavy decorated cloth), the Middle Latin carpita (thick woolen cloth) the past participle of the Latin carpere (to card, pluck).

*kerp- is also the root of the English word harvest, the Greek καρπός (karpos – fruit, grain, produce, harvest, children, poetry [fruit of the mind], profit); and the Irish ciorraigh (to cut, hack, maim).

Sources: Online Etymology Dictionary and Wiktionary.

Winter climber

By Simon

Zimolez (Lonicera periclymenum - Common honeysuckle - Zimolez ovíjivý)

The word zimolez, which is honeysuckle in Czech, came up the other day during a conversation with a Czech friend. It comes from zima (winter) and lézt (to climb, crawl, creep), so could be translated as “winter climber”.

Other interesting words that came up include plšík (doormouse), smršť (tornado) brblat (to grizzle, beef, grouch, mutter) and žbrblat (to mutter to oneself). The root smršť also appears in words related to shrinking and contracting, such as smrštit (to shrink), smrštěný (contracted, shrunk) and smršťovací fólie (shrink wrap).

What delicious consonant clusters!

The English name honeysuckle comes from the Old English hunigsuge (honey-suck). An alternative name is Eglantine, which comes from the Old French aiglent (dog rose), from the Vulgar Latin aquilentus (rich in prickles), from the Latin aculeus (spine, prickle), a diminutive of acus (needle)

Names for honeysuckle in other languages include:

  • German: Geißblatt (goat leaf)
  • French: Chèvrefeuille (goat leaf)
  • Irish: Féithleann (vein ale ?)
  • Italian: Caprifoglio (goat leaf)
  • Latin: Lonicera
  • Spanish: Madreselva (mother jungle)
  • Welsh: Gwyddfid (wild hedge ?) or Llaeth y gaseg (mare’s milk)

Poubelle

By Simon

Une poubelle

One of the things we discussed last night in the French conversation group was the origins of the word poubelle (bin / trash can). Fortunately one of us had an French etymological dictionary and we discovered that such receptacles are named after Eugène Poubelle (1831-1907), a lawyer, administrator and diplomat who was préfet of the Seine region of France and introduced the bin to Paris.

It was on 7th March 1884 that Poubelle decreed that owners of buildings must provide those who lived there with three covered containers for household rubbish, which was to be sorted into perishable items, paper and cloth, crockery and shells.

The containers proved popular with Parisians, who named them Boîtes Poubelle after Monsieur Poubelle, although building owners were not so keen as they had to pay for the containers and to have them emptied. Another group who didn’t welcome the Boîtes Poubelle were the chiffoniers (rag-and-bone men), who made their living from collecting rubbish.

As well as meaning bin, poubelle can also be used to refer to old cars in a poor state of repair – old bangers in the UK. Related words include:

  • camion-poubelle – bin lorry
  • jeter à la poubelle – to throw in the rubbish
  • sac poubelle – bin liner

The name Poubelle comes from pou bel (peu beau – just beautiful), from the dialect of Pas-de-Calais in northern France.

In English there are many words for poubelle. In the UK, for example, the small ones used inside are known as waste baskets, waste paper baskets, rubbish bins or bins; and the larger ones used outside are known as dustbins, rubbish bins, wheelie bins (if they have wheels) or bins. The ones in public places are known as litter bins. Names for such receptacles in the USA include trash can and garbage can, and I’m sure there are others.

In the UK rubbish is collected by bin men (the majority of them are men) who drive (dust)bin lorries / rubbish trucks / dust carts, and is taken to (rubbish) tips / dumps / landfills / recycling centres / incinerators. There are also official terms for all these – refuse disposal operatives, and such like. What about in other countries?

Épouvantail

By Simon

épouvantail (nf)

  1. objet, mannequin disposé dans les champs, dans les arbres, pour effrayer les oiseaux et les faire fuir (scarecrow)
  2. familièrement personne présentant un aspect extérieur repoussant (bogey, bugbear)
  3. quelqu’un ou quelque chose qui effraie sans raison (fright)
    [source]

For some reason we were talking about scarecrows or épouvantails at the French conversation group last night. It’s not a word that comes up in conversation very often, but I like the sound of it.

Related words include:

  • épouvantable = terrible, appalling, dreadful
  • épouvantablement = terribly, appallingly, dreadfully
  • épouvante = terror, fear
    – saisi d’épouvante = terror-stricken
    – roman/film d’épouvante = horror story/film

Words for scarecrow in other languages include:

  • Chinese – 稻草人 (dào​cǎo​rén​) = “straw man”
  • German – Vogelscheuche (bird shooer); Strohmann (straw man); Strohpuppe (straw doll/puppet)
  • Irish – babhdán – also means bogey man
  • Italian – spaventapasseri = “scare sparrows”
  • Japanese – かかし [鹿驚] (kakashi) = “deer surpriser”
  • Spanish – espantapájaros = “bird scarer”
  • Welsh – bwgan brain = “crows bogey/spook”