meta user
network profile
| bio | website | |
|---|---|---|
| location | France | |
| age | ||
| visits | member for | 1 year, 9 months |
| seen | 20 hours ago | |
| stats | profile views | 89 |
Busy pensioner with an interest in languages and culture.
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Mar 19 |
awarded | Notable Question |
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Jan 10 |
answered | French Letters and condoms |
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Jan 10 |
comment |
French Letters and condoms And in France a "French letter" is a capote anglaises. Capote being a military coat. Even more old fashioned would be "redingote anglaise*. (Redingote originating in the English "riding coat"). |
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Jan 7 |
comment |
The “of” in “the month of January” In French they say what is the equivalent of the month of January (le mois de janvier) and there's been at least as much of French influence since 1066 in the English language as German ! |
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Jan 6 |
revised |
Why is an apostrophe used in the genitive “-’s”? added 176 characters in body |
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Jan 6 |
answered | Why is an apostrophe used in the genitive “-’s”? |
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Jan 6 |
comment |
Why does “right” have the same two meanings in both English and French? @Aerovistae: There are lots of others. All have the same Proto-Indo-European root. A look at droit and right in the wiktionaries (French and English would have shown you you were starting on the wrong idea. It is general reference. |
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Dec 6 |
comment |
Origin of “Black & blue Friday”? @TechWriterJames: What about turning your comment into an answer? Your comment is exactly the kind of answer I was looking for: I was not asking about Black Friday since the answer is easily available and I was giving the link to the wikipedia page; and it was also obvious from my question that I knew what black and blue means when used about a person. |
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Dec 5 |
asked | Origin of “Black & blue Friday”? |
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Oct 3 |
awarded | Popular Question |
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Sep 24 |
answered | Phrase to say that something which happened twice already is likely to happen again |
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Sep 24 |
comment |
What does the phrase “taking a bath with the crowd” mean? @StoneyB: I strongly doubt Baudelaire was punning with the homonymy of the word. Not only because making puns is not his style, he probably did not think about it. I could add a little more on the origin of the word foule ("crowd") but this is not the place. Why don't you ask a question on FL&U? |
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Sep 23 |
comment |
What does the phrase “taking a bath with the crowd” mean? @StéphaneGimenez: I did not check all the links in your ngram, but those I checked up to the 1960s use "bain de foule" for the liquid in which the fulling (foulage in French) of cloth takes place. |
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Sep 23 |
comment |
What does the phrase “taking a bath with the crowd” mean? @StoneyB: Foule in this ngram example doesn't mean "crowd". "La foule" can also be the fulling of cloth, that's what it means here. And "le bain" in this example is the actual liquid in which the fulling takes place. Alain Rey's dictionnaire culturel en langue française gives 1960 as first appearance of the phrase "bain de foule" as meaning "to mingle with the crowd". |
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Sep 23 |
comment |
Can't understand the meaning of 'blamed exertion' in this sentence Blame - exertion |
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Sep 14 |
comment |
What is the origin of “rag” meaning newspaper? @J.R.: You're answering the question in my comment to the OP's question, thanks. |
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Sep 13 |
comment |
What is the origin of “rag” meaning newspaper? As a non native I had always assumed "rag" was used only when talking about newspapers that deal with sensational news items (I've heard and read the expression "gutter press" as regards to what I called "rags") and such newspapers as The Telegraph or The Guardian would not qualify as rags. And I thought it was called "rag" because it wiped the dirt from the gutter just like a rag in a house is used to wipe the dirt from the floor and furniture. It seems from your question that I was mistaken then and that any type of newspaper would be called a "rag". |
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Sep 12 |
awarded | Yearling |
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Aug 23 |
comment |
A word or phrase to express “écrivain engagé”, a committed writer? It sounds good, I agree. Talking about Sartre, English Wikipedia translates the concept with actively committed to causes. "Littérature engagée" is a typically French concept, which does not mean it doesn't exist in literature in other languages, of course : Orwell, Brinks, to name a few. |
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Aug 18 |
comment |
What does “believe it or not ” mean? Answer here or here |
