{"id":31277,"date":"2019-04-23T05:30:02","date_gmt":"2019-04-23T03:30:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/french\/?p=31277"},"modified":"2019-04-16T01:39:20","modified_gmt":"2019-04-15T23:39:20","slug":"french-wit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/french\/french-wit\/","title":{"rendered":"French Wit"},"content":{"rendered":"

When I was first living in France and learning French, understanding humour was one of things that took me the longest. As John discussed recently<\/a>, a lot of this is due to the fact that so much humour depends on more than simply understanding the words. It’s also because, for the French, humour is an art!<\/p>\n

\"Un

Un chat adorable<\/strong> \/ An adorable cat<\/em><\/p><\/div>\n

Mon chat Brexit<\/strong> \/ My cat Brexit<\/em><\/p>\n

I was recently reminded of the unique qualities of French humour by the recent news reports<\/a> that the French Minister for European Affairs, Nathalie Loiseau, had apparently renamed her cat Brexit! It is reported that she wrote on her private Facebook page (so much for private!): “J’ai fini par appeler mon chat Brexit. Il me r\u00e9veille en miaulant \u00e0 la mort parce qu’il veut sortir, et d\u00e8s que je lui ouvre la porte, il\u00a0 reste plant\u00e9 au milieu, ind\u00e9cis, et il me jette un regard noir quand je le mets dehors.<\/strong>” (In the end, I named my cat Brexit. He wakes me up with his crazy meowing because he wants to go out, and then when I open the door he just sits there in the middle, undecided, and if I toss him out he stares daggers at me.”)<\/em><\/p>\n

In any language, I think that image is just hysterical (or it would be if the consequences of Brexit weren’t so potentially serious).<\/p>\n

Mise \u00e0 jour<\/strong> \/ Update<\/em><\/p>\n

One of my favorite North American ville francophone <\/strong>(French-speaking cities)<\/em><\/a> has just received its latest\u00a0\u00e9loges<\/strong> (accolades). <\/em>After being named one of the world’s leading cultural destinations in 2016<\/a>, Qu\u00e9bec this year was named as the city with la plus belle rue du monde<\/strong><\/a> (the most beautiful street in the world). <\/em>Better that I guess, than being known as the city with too many French people<\/a> \ud83d\ude09 … <\/div>\n

De l’humour et de la philosophie<\/strong> \/\u00a0Of jokes and philosophy<\/em><\/p>\n

Apparently it was the French writer and philosopher Voltaire<\/a> who first introduced the word (though not the concept) humour<\/em> to the French. In an 18th century letter he said: “Les Anglais ont un terme pour signifier cette plaisanterie, ce vrai comique, cette gaiet\u00e9, cette unbanit\u00e9, ces saillies qui \u00e9chappent \u00e0 un homme sans qu’il s’en doute; et ils rendent cette id\u00e9e par le mot humeur, <\/b>humour,\u00a0<\/em>qu’ils prononcent <\/b>yumour<\/em>, et ils croient qu’ils ont seuls cette humeur; que les autres nations n’ont point de terme pour exprimer ce caract\u00e8re d’esprit<\/a>. Cependant c’est un ancien mot de notre langue, employ\u00e9 en ce sense [depuis Corneille].<\/b>” (The English have a word for these pleasantries, the comedic, this lightness, this urbaneness, these outbursts that surprise people; and they represent this idea with the word\u00a0humour that they pronounce\u00a0yumour, and they think they’re the only ones to possess, that other nations just can’t capture the unique quality of wit. And yet, we’ve had this term in our language as far back as Corneille.<\/em>)<\/p>\n

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Photo by\u00a0Amir Ghoorchiani<\/a>\u00a0from\u00a0Pexels\u00a0<\/a> [CC0]<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\"\"

When I was first living in France and learning French, understanding humour was one of things that took me the longest. As John discussed recently, a lot of this is due to the fact that so much humour depends on more than simply understanding the words. It’s also because, for the French, humour is an…<\/p>\n

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