Thursday, July 21, 2005

Cours!

(le) bonheur = happiness (bonn - er)

"Le bonheur est dans le pré, cours-y vite, cours-y vite,
Le bonhheur est dans le pré, cours-y vite il va filer" (Paul Fort)

From a famous poem that most kids have to learn in middle school….
Happiness is in the field, run fast, run fast
Happiness is in the field, run fast or it'll go away
Interestingly, at the end of the poem, happiness does flee away.

Le bonheur est dans le pré is also a comedy by French filmmaker Etienne Chatiliez, unfortunately unavailable outside of France.

Since I'll be doing some chasing of my own next week, the French Word of the Day, like me, will be taking a vacation.

Wednesday, July 20, 2005

La télé Française

Today, a short history of French television. The Office de Radiodiffusion Télévision Française (ORTF - French Television Broadcast Office), which replaced the Radiodiffusion Télévision Française (RTF) in 1964, was the government-owned association that controlled all television broadcast, until 1974. At that time, it was disbanded into 7 different companies:
  • Radio France
  • Télévision Française 1 (TF1)

  • Antenne 2 ('Channel 2')



  • France 3 (FR3)



  • 3 other companies with various responsabilities in the distribution and archiving of TV programs.
In 1976, TF1 becomes the first channel to broadcast in color. In 87, it is privatized and the Bouygues group becomes the main shareoholder.

In 1984, Canal Plus is created. This first subscription channel encrypts its broadcast, and its main differentiators were movies (showed 6 to 9 months after their theatrical release, before they were released to VHS), sports (soccer, boxing...) and... porn. Although it is losing the movie competition to more recent cable channels, it is still strong in the sports world, as it's recent €600M bid for the rights to the French Soccer League clearly shows.

La 5 was a short-lived public station started by French and Italian investors trying to replicate Silvio Berlusconi's success in Italy. It broadcasted form 86 to 92, before being replaced by Arte. The #5 spot is now taken by France 5 (original, no?)


Finally, M6 is still around, with programs targetting teenagers and young adults (music videos, US TV shows, the occasional erotic movie...)

Les inconnus

(un) inconnu = an unknown person

Les inconnus is a famous comic trio composed of Didier Bourdon, Bernard Campan and Pascal Légitimus. They became mainstream with a widely successful series of TV sketches in the early 90's, where they caricatured pretty much every popular TV show of that era. It was the kind of show kids used to talk about for days after they were aired, and that people still like to quote.

Their first movie, Les trois frères (Three brothers), is a hilarious tale of three estranged brothers that reunite after their Mom dies.
Unfortunately, that was 10 years ago, and the trio has mostly split up except for a couple of forgettable follow-up movies (Les rois mages anyone ? Anyone ?)

Monday, July 18, 2005

T'as le choix

(un) choix ('sho - ah') =
  • a choice. Can be between (entre) several things. E.g. tu as le choix entre une robe bleue ou rouge = you can chose between a blue dress and a red one. Tu n'as pas le choix = you have no choice. Avoir le choix dans la date = to have the choice of the date (warning: this one is a famous contrepèterie, that you can find explained here, and some further vocabulary from a previous FWotD)
  • an assortment, as in le choix est très limité ici = there's very little choice here
  • a selection, as in une selection d'œuvres = a selection of works
  • de choix = first-rate. E.g. les places de choix sont toutes reservées = the best seats are all reserverd

Sunday, July 17, 2005

Les jeux olympiques

Les jeux olympiques (the 'x' is silent) = the Olympic Games.

An in honor of Paris' lost bid for the 2012 games, a funny picture:

Friday, July 15, 2005

Schtroumpf alors!

Created by Belgian comic writer Peyo, the Schtroumpfs, or Smurfs, are an institution of the French-speaking world.

The Schtroumpfs and the Schtroumpfette, Papa Schtroumpf, evil Gargamel and his cat Azraël, the scary Schtroumpf Noir, the way they use "Schtroumpf" as a placeholder word for anything... so many memories for people who grew up in the 80's and 90's.




It is such an institution that people are looking for answers to questions such as how many Schtroumpfs are there? and how do they reproduce?

Wednesday, July 13, 2005

Le 14 Juillet

Le quatorze Juillet ('ka - torz - ju - ee - yay'), a.k.a. Bastille Day, is the National French Holiday. On that day in 1789, citizens took the Bastille prison, a symbol of monarchy and despotic power. The storming of the Bastille came to symbolize liberty, democracy, and the fight against oppression. In the collective mind, the picture that probably best represents this moment is Eugène Delacroix's "La Liberté guidant le peuple" (Liberty guiding the People), which is under display at the Louvre, in Paris:

Tuesday, July 12, 2005

La farce du jour

(un) contrepet or (une) contrepèterie = a (deliberate) spoonerism, where one or more syllables are deliberately inverted to make another sentence. It's definitely an art de vivre, as illustrated by the famous column titled "Sur l'Album de la Comtesse" in French newspaper Le canard enchaîné, that delights its readers with contrepèteries related to the latest news. And, as there's nothing like a few examples to grab the concept, here we go:
Le mot de guichet (word of the counter) -> Le godemiché (see here)
Les mots grecs (greek words) -> Les gros mecs (big guys)
Les proues qui tuent (killing prows) -> Les trous qui puent (stinking holes)

Obviously, a contrepèterie doesn't have to make any sense at all, or be subtle for that matter: 90% of them use slang sexual references, but isn't that half of the fun.

Le tour de France

A.k.a. la grande boucle ('the big loop') or simply Le Tour, this legendary bicycle ride is usually either considered:
  • a boring tradition that gives old people a reason to stay inside and watch TV during the hot summer days, and people with nothing better to do a good excuse to go camp out on the road in the hope to catch a glimpse of the race
  • a mythic race of epic proportions, a marathon on wheels that only the strongest can hope to win
Personally, I've never really cared, and am not about to start.

Sunday, July 10, 2005

French recipes of the day

(un) civet ('see - vay') = a stew, but only for game. Otherwise, use
(un) ragoût ('ra - goo') or
(une) blanquette ('blanket') for veal and chicken.
I know, it's confusing, and especially for people like me with no cooking skill whatsoever.

So today's recipes:



Both are institutions of French cuisine, the kind of meals our grandparents used to spend hours cooking for an entire family, and reheat for a few days.

Friday, July 08, 2005

Splendide

A (huge) piece of French culture today. Le Splendid is a theater company that emerged in the 70s. Their first movie, "Les bronzés" ("the tanned"), adapted from their successful play depicting the adventures of a group of friends in a Club Med vacation camp, quickly became a cult movie. Having seen the movie and knowing at least 10 quotes from it is a requirement for becoming a French citizen - ok maybe not, but it should anyway.
The movie was followed by a sequel ("Les bronzés font du ski", same group of friends, this time on a ski vacation in the French Alps), and another cult adaptation of one of the Splendid plays, "Le Père Noël est une ordure" ("Santa Claus is a bastard"). Only Les bronzés seems to have made it to the English-speaking world, under the interesting title "French fried vacation".

Wednesday, July 06, 2005

Tic tac

(un) métronome = a metronome
être réglé comme un métronome = to run like clockwork


Les 400 coups

(un) coup = a knock / a blow. Pronounced koo.

Lots of expressions with coup:
un coup fourré = a dirty trick
un coup bas = a blow below the belt
faire les 400 coups = to raise hell. Also the name of a famous French movie by François Truffaut.
un coup de barre = a sudden fatigue (like being hit with a bar)

E.g.
J'ai un énorme coup de barre = I'm suddenly extremely tired
Il m'a fait un coup de pute = he screwed me

Pute (hooker) is a word I'll have to cover some day.

Monday, July 04, 2005

Quelques vents

(le) mistral
(la) tramontane

Both are violent, cold winds blowing in the Southern regions of France, that every kid learns about by hearing about them on the daily Météo France weather forecast. But to this day I must say I can't really make the difference between the two, and Météo France's explanation doesn't really help, except that both winds seem heavily correlated. In any case, they both evoke the Mediterranean coast and its delights to me.

Friday, July 01, 2005

C'est mon dada

(un) dada = baby talk for "horse". Also means hobby.

E.g. faire du dada = to go horseback riding
C'est mon dada = it's my hobby
Dadaisme = Dadaism