Questions tagged [french]
For questions about English words and phrases of French origin. For questions purely about French, visit our sister site French Language Stack Exchange.
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Why is "sepulcher" pronounced the way it is?
Since I first read it, I always pronounced the word "sepulcher" as /səˈpal.tʃə/, but recently I learned that the correct pronunciation is /ˈsɛ.pəl.kə/, or slight variations thereof. Now, ...
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Are there examples of mutual loanwords in French and in English?
I was once asked the question:
What French word is commonly used in English for which an English word is commonly used in French?
The answer was respectively rendezvous and date, which I found very ...
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Why does English use the French "sans" for sans serif?
Is it because France had impactful printers and typecutters like the Garamonds and Jensons in the Renaissance?
Or is it about being elegant and “Frenchified” when talking about something as peculiar ...
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Why should we say, "He is risen," on Easter Sunday? [duplicate]
In reality, although this phrase may sound or feel like incorrect English, on Easter Sunday English-speaking Christians say this instead of saying, "He has risen."
Grammatical archaicisms ...
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Past perfect when the action is separated from the present by facts that are common knowledge to the speakers but not mentioned
Page 59 of Learner English: A Teacher's Guide to Interference reads:
There is a tense in French which is formed like the English past
perfect, and its usage corresponds generally to the English tense....
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Why did English start verbalizing Latin past participles, not keep nativizing infinitive suffixes like it used to do to French verbs? [closed]
The way English adapted French verbs used to be quite straightforward: swap the French infinitive suffixes with Middle English -en:
Latin crīdāre > Old French crier > Middle English crien (13th ...
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How did -ing become a suffix for both present participles and nouns derived from verbs?
In non-modern and non-Middle-English Germanic languages, present participles and nouns derived from verbs look and sound very different:
English: wend - wending - wending
Middle English: wenden - ...
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What is the English equivalent of the French word "consigne" in English (in the classroom context)?
What is the English equivalent of the French word "consigne"? I am referring here to the classroom context, so in phrases such as "consigne de l'exercice". See also the picture at ...
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Sobriquet: Tap under the chin, origin unknown?
We see here https://www.etymonline.com/word/sobriquet and it says "origin unknown."
Is this to say, the connection between the literal meaning and the current meaning is unknown?
I would ...
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(Mis-)pronunciation of ‘accoutrement’ that ends in -L not in -NT?
I’m interested in the apparent mispronunciation of the word accoutrement [əˈkutrəmənt].
Although it’s not a word I encounter daily, when occasioned upon, I often hear the speaker pronounce it as [...
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Origin of the phrase "to have no truck with"
This phrase "to have no truck with" has bothered me ever since I stumbled upon it, the reason being it makes no logical sense whatsoever even remotely if you go by the lexical meaning of the ...
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Etymology of the word "erre" in English
I'm currently working on Bible translations and have stumbled accross the word "erre" in James (1: 2-18) of the King James Bible.
To be more specific in verse 16:
Doe not erre, my beloued ...
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Aren't English' "shoe" and French' "chaussure" related?
I was absolutely certain that shoe (en) and chaussure (fr) were cognates due to the obvious similarity between their first syllable, especially the pronunciation - that was until I looked them up on ...
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What does "the continuity of rights under French law" means?
A French student who wants to intern at our company gives us this document to sign, which includes this question:
SOCIAL SECURITY PROVIDED BY THE HOST ORGANIZATION (within the framework of internship ...
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Do "elision" and "ratatouille" have unmarked plural forms?
According to Microsoft® Encarta® 2009, the word elision has an unmarked plural elision (no -s suffix) as an alternative to elisions.
Can "elision" be used as a plural form? If so, is it due ...
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What do we call a price that is chosen by a customer?
I'm a native French speaker.
In recent years, there has been a new concept of price in French that is "prix libre". A literal translation of "prix libre" is "free price".
...
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Double meaning of relief
I was writing a report for an assignment and found myself wanting to write the following sentence.
The resulting landscape shows more relief.
In Dutch, "relief" only has the French meaning ...
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Idiom to express 'being good at something'
I am currently working on a translation project for university (nothing profressional) and I have a question regarding the translation of a French expression which goes "je ne crains personne&...
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What is the origin of the term 'Au pair'
After watching Haunting at bly manor, I'm really confused about the term 'Au pair' referring a in house helper.
But being a french speaker, and 'Au pair' seemingly being borrowed from french, it ...
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Does French past participle PRISE explain Modern English meanings of "comPRISE"?
compose, comprise. Compose means “to make up” or “to constitute.” Comprise means “to be composed of” or “to consist of.” The American Digest System comprises nine units and a current supplement (or is ...
user409391
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How do you hyphenate "Lagrangian"?
This is a proper noun (used extensively in physics) named after a French monsieur. How should this word be hyphenated? Should it follow English or French pronunciation rules, or something else?
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In need of accurate translations for "discount" [closed]
I’m writing a program for point of sales work. Thus, in my code, I need to
name things (in English) related to concerns like "Store", "Sales",
"Price", etc.
I’m now ...
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How to translate "Facéties de Descendre" from French in the context of a board game? [closed]
I'd like to translate a card from a French board game. In particular, I'm interested about one of the names of the abilities. Now, I'm not a native English speaker, but I'm pretty sure that the ...
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Relaunch or Raise [closed]
I'm French and I would like to translate "Relancer un client".
This expression is used, for example, when an invoice has been sent to a customer, but no payment has been received after the ...
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What do you call the art of 'proper' bearing? (French 'maintien')
An aristocrat, model, steward… will learn about walking, sitting, behaving, etc. according to a certain etiquette.
I am not talking about protocol, conversation and etiquette in general - just the ...
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Does the whole always "comprise" the parts of something, and not the other way around? [closed]
The verb "comprise" comes to me naturally to use in certain situations, at odds with a legalistic sense of correctness. It's a word often used in patents, or patent applicaitons, where some invention ...
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Couture and canapé are just another Saturday night until you add a mask. [Why the singular 'canapé'?]
In an American TV show called 'Gossip Girl', here's a narration by Gossip Girl herself (YouTube video):
Long ago, when European royals grew bored with palace balls they took a page from the peons, ...
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Another name for a cheval de frise
I need another way to label a cheval de frise for my book. The problem is, the story takes place in a fantasy setting that neither contains the French language, nor Frisians.
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Is there a proper way to translate "Bonne continuation" from french?
In my opinion, the difference between "Félicitations!" and "Bonne continuation!" is that the former is used to congratulate someone and to celebrate an achievment such as passing an exam for example. ...
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How to translate "Je fais marcher le carburateur"?
What would be a good translation of "je fais marcher le carburateur" in English.
It is an expression to say that you are thinking intensively, using your brain a lot.
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Translate the French quote "Il n’y a pas d'amour, il n’y a que des preuves d’amour" to English?
I’d like to translate a quote from Pierre Reverdy (or Jean Cocteau, this
is an open question apparently). The quote is:
Il n’y a pas d’amour, il n’y a que des preuves d’amour.
For some context in ...
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How and why have French words arrived in the English language? [closed]
I've just finished watching Stranger Things, and in one episode, Nancy mentions a cul-de-sac, which is essentially a French word (I'm French and we recognize when English uses French words, with this ...
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Does "angular cheilitis" have any more commonly used synonyms than "perlèche" or "rhagades" which regular people would recognize?
The field of medical pathology uses the term angular cheilitis. I’m looking for a common word or phrase to use in place of this highly specialized technical term that I fear is likely to be known only ...
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Is there an English equivalent for "Les carottes sont cuites", while keeping the vegetable reference?
In French, we have this saying "Les carottes sont cuites", meaning "It's too late we can't do anything anymore" or "It's over for him" (He's dead) depending on the context.
The literal translation ...
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How can I translate the French expression "travailler en alternance" to English? [closed]
I am looking to translate the expression
travailler en alternance
into English.
I have found several answers on the internet but none seems to match my use case.
I am still at school and I am ...
user353968
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What is the English pronunciation of "pain au chocolat"?
How do Brits and Americans pronounce pain au chocolat?
user197453
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There is any relation between the English verb "ask" and the French expression "est-ce que"?
I was thinking about the pronunciation of the English verb "ask" and how it's similar to the French expression "est-ce que", used to start questions in some cases. I searched for the origin of "ask" ...
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A translation for the clair french word? [closed]
What could be the translation for the "clair" word in English?
I mean "clair" in the sense decrypted, not clear.
(sorry for my bad english)
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History of "Above and Beyond" and other similar phrases as English and French
In an editing lecture, I learned about how some phrases are filler because they are literally just repetition of the same idea. Above and beyond is the only one I can think of now.
The lecturer said ...
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Origin of the negative connotation of "boy"
Recently I stumbled on a discussion where the word "chico" in Spanish is translated to "boy". To my knowledge, using "chico" to refer to someone younger is considered normal. But in English, calling ...
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Adding -s to French city names
This seems to be fairly common pattern. The modern English names of several French or French-related cities seem to add s for no obvious reason.
Marseille > Marseilles
Lyon > Lyons
Tanger > ...
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Correspondence of French "exercice" and English "year/period" in a specialized, economic sense
In French, we use the term exercice to refer to a period of time between two events. We say exercice fiscal for fiscal year, exercice comptable for accounting period, etc. One of the senses given by ...
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Debutante in a sporting context?
The Collins English Dictionary defines a "debutant" as
"a person who is making a first appearance in a particular capacity, such as a sportsperson playing in a first game for a team"
As the ...
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Is there an English equivalent to this French idiom : "Brasser du vent"? [closed]
This idiom means "Talking a lot without significant results". I was wondering if there was a specific idiom to say this. So far, I have found nothing but "hot air merchant".
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Is the word "saboteuse" archaic?
Is it the word saboteuse considered archaic (or not fully added from French)?
Should all saboteurs be referred to as such regardless of sex?
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How to use the prepositions "apud" and "chez"?
I couldn't find many examples of apud and chez as prepositions; I just found one description on Wiktionary:
apud
1. Used in scholarly works to cite a reference at second hand.
Jones apud ...
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How to pronounce bechamel the English way?
I had an argument with my friend the other day about the pronunciation of bechamel.
Everyone I know is pronouncing it like besha-mel. I've looked it up though and found out that the correct ...
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Why is the pronunciation of French loanwords with the ending é botched?
Take these French words that exist as well in English:
résumé
protégé
sauté
exposé
café
The French pronunciation for the é is simply /e/, which exists in English.
So why is the widely accepted ...
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Repetition of "their"
I'm currently translating from French to English and can't decide how to translate a sentence without the repetition of their being weird.
All around the world States are thinking about and are ...
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Seeking etymological explanation of card game Euchre based on its spelling
Am seeking etymological explanation how, Euchre, the United States’ most popular card game in the late 19th century, might have come to be spelled in that manner. It is speculated that the game ...
