Retour au Zoo des Locutions (Back to the Zoo of Idioms)
Posted on 22. Apr, 2010 by Hichem in Vocabulary
Comme promis (as promised), we continue our petite ballade of the zoo des locutions.
We devoted la part du lion (the lion’s share) to le roi de la jungle (the king of the jungle.) Then we moved on, sans transition (without transition), to another animal, or like we phrased it, nous sommes passés “du coq à l’âne” (literally “from the rooster to the donkey”), meaning that we leapt from one subject to another, all the while noting en passant the “cautionary reserve” that should be observed when this particular expression is used (unless, of course, you really mean it, to be mean.)
Bienvenue à la section aquarium du Zoo
In the end of our last post, we reached la section aquarium (the aquarium section) of the parc zoologique (zoological park.) We didn’t want to end it “en queue de poisson” (“in a fish-tail”, meaning to end inconclusively), so let’s pick it up from there, hoping that by the time you read all these posts and memorized all the idioms, you will be un véritable expert (a real expert), or “comme un poisson dans l’eau” (in one’s element, or simply like fish in the water) with les locutions françaises. If you don’t, however, then no worries, we will not go all the way to the point of “vous engueuler comme du poisson pourri”, a charming expression which means to be so mad at you and “call you every name under the sun”, though its literal significance is actually “to yell at you like rotten fish”!
You may very reasonably wonder if the French people who originally invented this locution meant that it’s somehow the “yeller” who is being compared to “rotten fish”, or, au contraire (to the contrary), if it’s the “yellée” who is in fact compared to “rotten fish”… Either way, the image is quite absurd (or “insolite”, like Jennie said), because once a fish is rotten, would it bother to yell at you? Or would it care if you yelled at it?! To paraphrase a famous Astérix and Obélix exclamative, who usually say: “Ils sont fous, ces Romains !” (They are crazy, those Romans), we ought to say here: “Ils sont fous, ces Français !”
More “absurd” locutions, “illustrated” in this video:
Should you be overly surprised if you were to encounter an even more absurd or bizarre French expression idiomatique ? Bien sûr que non (Of course not)! After all, you have come here, in le zoo des locutions, to be surprised, and possibly discover some new species! Actually, since we have already mentioned l’esprit cartésien which the French are O, so proud of (See “The French Language: L’Éloquence, Par Excellence!” blogs.transparent.com/french/french-eloquence-par-excellence), a sort of global view of life essentially rhyming with razor-sharp rationality and cutting-edge logic, it is interesting to note that many a French linguist has attempted to provide a logical explanation of what they deemed it to be absurdity in appearance only. Malheureusement pour eux (unfortunately for them –the linguists that is), many of these explanations very often seem tirées par les cheveux (“pulled from the hair”, meaning far-fetched, or implausible), if not to say completely farfelue (wild, or just whacky.) In such cases, instead of enlightening and informing the reader about the way a given locution has come to light, they end up doing something called in French noyer le poisson, which means to cloud the issue, by confusing someone completely.
Wait a second, did we actually say “noyer le poisson“? How can one “drown a fish”? C’est absurd; c’est bizarre.
I’m sure that you must have already noticed it by now: There’s definitely something quite… “fishy” about these locutions françaises.
Allez, à la prochaine! Le tour zoologique continue…
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