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Monday, 11 August 2008 |
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To our way of thinking,
French often appears to state
the obvious, out of a desire
for clarity. I’ll never forget
one of the first jokes I heard
in French by Jean-Marie
Bigard: a couple are greeted
at a fancy restaurant by the
maître d’ (maître d’hôtel),
who says: “Bonjour Madame,
Bonjour Monsieur, c’est pour
dîner ?”. To which the man
replies “Non, c’est pour jouer
au tennis”. In a similar vein,
waiters who always repeat
your order can irritate,
although admittedly they
have probably been trained to
do so, again out of a desire for
clarity.
Phrases like il pleut
dehors and la neige tombe are
commonly called lapalissades
(statements of the obvious,
truisms), a word formed from
the name of a French field
marshal La Palice, renowned
for his truisms. When he died,
his soldiers are reported to
have said “S’il n’était pas
mort il ferait envie”, which
over time appositely became
“S’il n’était pas mort il serait
en vie”! According to other
accounts, the soldiers sang
“Un quart d’heure avant sa
mort, il était encore en vie”.
Lapalissades are similar to
pleonasms (descendre en bas,
prévoir à l’avance, etc.),
which we’ve covered in
previous issues (Bête Noire),
although they don’t usually
involve a combination of two
terms that mean the same
thing. Of course, truisms
aren’t confined to French.
George Bush has (unwittingly
– involontairement/sans faire
exprès) popularized them to
such an extent that we now
have the word Bushism
(Bushisme), arguably his
greatest contribution to the
world, some might say! Je
pense que nous sommes
d’accord : le passé est révolu
(I think we agree, the past is
over) and La plupart de nos
importations viennent de
l’étranger (Most of our
imports come from overseas)
are two shining examples of
Bush’s sottises (talking
nonsense).
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