Funny Foreign Idioms

[+ Gar1eth]

I'm actually not a Francophile. But I'm reading a 'memoir' called "Flirting With French-How A Language Charmed Me, Seduced Me, & Nearly Broke My Heart" by William Alexander. It's the story of how he tried to learn to speak French. I don't know whether he succeeds yet as I'm only 58% through the book (%-age courtesy of my Kindle). While reading I came across something too good not to share. I can't believe that neither Steven Draker nor any of the other polyglots on the Forum have never shared this bit of cultural wisdom with us before.

 

So at this point in the book a French woman tries to help him learn proper French pronunciation by telling him to try to feel like a Frenchman while pronouncing the words. To try get some kind of feeling for the French national character he compares some common sayings between English and French.

 

For example 'To tie the knot' (get married) in French is 'Se passer la corde au coe' (To put a rope around your neck)

 

Or

 

'It costs an arm and a leg' in French is 'Il coûte la peau du cul' (It costs the skin of an ass)

 

So in French 'To have a wet dream' is 'Faire une carte de France' (To make a map of France) :rolleyes:because the splotch of cum the teenage boy ends up with on his tummy (or in my case it would have been my underwear) looks a bit like the country outline on a map.

 

 

I don't know why. But this hit my funny bone (which is a non-pc petit juif * 'little Jew' in Fr which sounds very shocking- but I guess is no worse than 'Indian-giver' except we have in the U.S. have become enlightened and don't really use that term anymore).

 

Gman

 

*Wiktionary explanation of the term https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/petit_juif