{"id":19875,"date":"2020-09-25T13:48:36","date_gmt":"2020-09-25T13:48:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/?p=19875"},"modified":"2020-09-25T13:48:38","modified_gmt":"2020-09-25T13:48:38","slug":"almost-nearly-not-quite","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/?p=19875","title":{"rendered":"Almost, Nearly, Not Quite"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>One of the words that came up in the French Conversation Group last night was <strong>faillir<\/strong> [fa.ji\u0281], which means to almost do something or to fail.<\/p>\n<p><a data-flickr-embed=\"true\" href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/dedekarrache\/4295242829\/in\/photolist-7xyf3R-2jiqW6d-841MVv-5pi1bg-PkrcLJ-eUG1GV-6Lucye-6LyjU3-6Lu9WM-2a9eMex-5g7oBq-Z7LaWy-rZrMFo-6HeFHt-5etA1y-6T1nsW-eUG2jx-2cWdYe5-2byxUWV-5gk4cc-6AtcvJ-5RBUZS-6Kfvqa-gcee2q-9cUU8N-eUG2Vt-aznFHK-WE4KMe-2enwEND-4XTUoH-2g4hr6d-6xbYDP-2ibNkNT-4kAjJf-28ujWYJ-58N3FQ-2jfkNao-NLHEFs-xxiXf5-6wmLXr-2jq32DZ-2cK373Q-5sXCL6-2a3WuxW-T2ujCz-5WmBhK-wSHdyY-d2E7py-82NGPX-bxKc8n\" title=\"Presque ...\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/4027\/4295242829_1fb5b05c7e_z.jpg\" alt=\"Presque ...\" width=\"640\" height=\"427\"><\/a><script async=\"\" src=\"\/\/embedr.flickr.com\/assets\/client-code.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>Whether you almost do something or fail to do it is really a matter of perspective &#8211; the end result is the same. Yesterday, for example, I almost made another episode of the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/radio\/\">Radio Omniglot podcast<\/a>. I recorded about 15-20 minutes of it several times, decided it wasn&#8217;t good enough, then got distracted with other things, as often happens. I can talk about language-related topics at the drop of a hat until the cows come home, but actually making my ramblings into a reasonably coherent podcast is a different kettle of fish. The editing always takes quite a while, and I usually find something else to do instead.<\/p>\n<p>Today I told myself that I would make the podcast first thing, before checking emails, or getting distracted by other things. Several hours later I  still haven&#8217;t produced the podcast, but I have learnt some more Swedish and Danish, answered some emails and written this.<\/p>\n<p>Anyway, back to <strong>faillir<\/strong> &#8211; appears in expressions like:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>faillir faire = to almost\/nearly do<\/li>\n<li>J&#8217;ai failli tomber = I almost\/nearly fell<\/li>\n<li>J&#8217;ai failli lui dire = I almost\/nearly told him<\/li>\n<li>J&#8217;ai failli l&#8217;oublier = I almost forgot about it<\/li>\n<li>faillir \u00e0 qch = to fall short of sth<\/li>\n<li>faillir \u00e0 sa t\u00e2che = to fall short of one&#8217;s tsak<\/li>\n<li>faillir \u00e0 son devoir = to fall short of one&#8217;s duty<\/li>\n<li>Il ne faut pas faillir \u00e0 notre devoir = We must not falter in our duty now<\/li>\n<li>J&#8217;ai un plan astucieux qui ne peut faillir = I have a cunning plan that cannot fail<\/li>\n<li>avoir failli faire qch = to narrowly miss doing sth<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Related words include:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>failli(e) = bankrupt, insolvent<\/li>\n<li>la faillite = bankruptcy, collapse (<em>political<\/em>)<\/li>\n<li>une entreprise en faillite = a bankrupt business<\/li>\n<li>\u00eatre en faillite = to be bankrupt<\/li>\n<li>faire en faillite = to go bankrupt, fail, go broke, go bust<\/li>\n<li>la ferme a failli faire en faillite = the farm almost went bankrupt<\/li>\n<li>il faut qu&#8217;il faille faire en faillite = he must almost go bankrupt<\/li>\n<li>faille = flaw, loophole, weak spot, fault<\/li>\n<li>faille fiscale = tax loophole<\/li>\n<li>faille spatio-temporelle = time warp<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Faillir<\/strong> comes from the Middle French <em>faillir<\/em> (to fail), from the Old French <em>falir<\/em>, from the Vulgar Latin <em>*fall\u012bre<\/em>, from the Latin <em>fallere<\/em> (to deceive, disappoint, cheat), from the Proto-Indo-European <em>*b\u02b0\u0101l-<\/em> (to lie, deceive). The English word <strong>fail<\/strong> comes from the same root, via the Middle English <em>failen<\/em>, and the Anglo-Norman <em>faillir<\/em> (to fail).<\/p>\n<p>Another way to say that you almost did something is <strong>J&#8217;ai presque fait qch<\/strong>, for example, <strong>Il est presque tomb\u00e9<\/strong> and <strong>Il a failli tomber<\/strong> both mean &#8216;He almost fell&#8217;. In the case of the latter, the impression I get is that he was expected to fall, but didn&#8217;t, while in the case of the former, there seems to be no expectation that he would fall. Is that right?<\/p>\n<p><em>Sources: <a href=\"https:\/\/dictionary.reverso.net\/french-english\/faillir\">Reverso<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wiktionary.org\/wiki\/faillir\">Wiktionary<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/en.bab.la\/dictionary\/french-english\/failli\">bab.la<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>One of the words that came up in the French Conversation Group last night was faillir [fa.ji\u0281], which means to almost do something or to fail. Whether you almost do something or fail to do it is really a matter of perspective &#8211; the end result is the same. Yesterday, for example, I almost made [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[85,104,107,111,10,15,26,27,34,45,78],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19875","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-anglo-norman","category-english","category-etymology","category-french","category-language","category-latin","category-middle-english","category-middle-french","category-old-french","category-proto-indo-european","category-words-and-phrases"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19875","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=19875"}],"version-history":[{"count":18,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19875\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19893,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19875\/revisions\/19893"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19875"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19875"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19875"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}