Day 2428 (Wednesday) 31st January 2024

This is a policeman in Nice – I have no idea why there are wine bottles at his feet!

It was yet another sunny day and the paddle boarders were out.

Huw finished painting the ceiling in the apartment yesterday and painted some walls today. He kindly came home to take me to Saint-Jean Cap-Ferrat to work with Oceane.

Back to some French, this article is quite long so I’ll post it over two days…

21 Weird French Words You Won’t Believe Exist.

They say that Innuit have hundreds of words for snow.

Other languages have words for concepts we’ve never even thought of.

Linguists remain at odds as to whether the language we speak influences how we think or vice versa.

However, you choose to look at it, though, some languages are just full of words that can seem strange to a non-native speaker, and French is no exception.

Advanced learners may be amused to learn some of these words, and anyone with an interest in French will see how some of these words aren’t the cognates their spellings may have you believe they are at first glance.

Try using them in day-to-day conversation.

1. Caoutchouc 

This word means “rubber,” as in the bendy substance we get from trees, and actually has a fairly straightforward history. Caoutchouc comes from the native South American language Quechua and its word kawchu. Indeed English is the “odd one out” when it comes to this word, because the German Kautschuk and the Spanish caucho have the same origins.

2. Dépaysant 

Dépaysant, directly translated, means “un-country-ing.” A strange word, to say the least, but one that expresses a sentiment similar to homesickness. It’s the feeling you get when you’re in a new place and experiencing very new things that make you feel foreign, out of sorts and strange. Eating dinner at 9 p.m. in the south of France might be dépaysant, or giving new friends the bise (greeting them by kissing on the cheek).

3. Métro-boulot-dodo 

Métro refers to public transportation, boulot to the slang term for a job and dodo to baby talk for “sleep” (akin to “sleepy-time” or “beddy-bye”). Smash it all together, though, and you have a French compound noun that sums up the existential quandary of adult life: commute-job-sleep. Now say it 10 times fast, pass out and wake up for work tomorrow. 

4. Flâner 

This Baudelarian term is perfectly suited to French culture. Flâner is to wander with no particular destination in mind, people watching, window shopping and basically existing as a city-dweller. To Baudelaire’s mind, this sort of wandering was perfectly suited to a city like Paris, and he wrote many of his prose poems about doing just this—wandering. It makes sense, then, that a flâneur (or flâneuse, for a woman), is someone who spends a good amount of time wandering about.

5. Yaourter 

Literally “to yogurt,” yaourter describes singing or speaking in a language one either doesn’t know very well or has decided to fake in whatever context they’re using it. Common usage refers to more of an imitation than a sincere attempt, like trying to fudge your way through a song you haven’t memorised the lyrics to, or speaking a “pretend” language by mimicking the accent and vocal mannerisms without using real words.

Another way to describe this phenomenon is with the expression chanter en yaourt (to sing through yogurt). Either term is often used to refer to a native French speaker singing along with English words with which they’re not entirely familiar.

6. Frappadingue 

This fantastic, hybrid word is great for telling someone just how crazy they really are. Frappadingue comes from two separate words that both point towards someone’s insanity. Frappé is the first part and comes from the verb frapper (to hit), as in, “You’re so nuts you must have been hit on the head.”

7. Loufoquerie 

Loufoquerie is a word for “craziness.” The French word loufoque originated from fou (standard French for “crazy”) in louchébem (a slang invented by French butchers in the 19th century). 

Louchébem involves moving the first consonant of a word to the end, tacking on a standard suffix and adding the letter “L” to the beginning. This is still used in the French meat industry today. I don’t know how these things are true, they just are. You can’t possibly hold me responsible for this loufoquerie!

8. Hurluberlu 

Hurluberlu can be used to describe an eccentric, scatterbrained person—like a crackpot or screwball. In other words, someone who might from time to time engage in some loufoquerie.

The exact origins of this word are unknown, but it’s old enough to have been used in the 16th century by the French Renaissance writer François Rabelais. Rabelais was playful and creative with his word choice and highly influential on the French language. He was responsible for adding loan words to French from Greek and Latin, as well as making up some of his own, so it’s impossible to know from exactly whence hurluberlu was plucked.

9. Tohu-bohu 

This is a loan word taken from the Hebrew tohu wa-bohu, which appears in the original text of the Bible in the Book of Genesis, referring to the formless state of the universe before God created light, water, animals, people, etc.

So practically the same word that was used to describe the origins of time can now be used to describe what happens when two car alarms go off simultaneously in a parking lot between a senior bingo game and a folk concert: confusion, pandemonium.

10. Râler 

Râler describes a very particular way of complaining that has been all but perfected by the French. Somewhat more distinguished than whining, but not nearly as precise as complaining, râler is how the French express their perpetual dissatisfaction with the world. It is done with utmost grace, poise and perfect grammar, bien sûr.

11. Œil-de-bœuf 

You may be familiar with this word already since it has been adopted into English much in the same way as hors-d’œuvre. Œil-de-bœuf  literally translates to “ox eye,” but luckily does not refer to something edible. Rather, œil-de-bœuf refers to an oculus, or a circular/oval window often part of the architecture of churches, mosques and castles. In fact, the word œil (eye) can be used in French architectural lingo to refer to any small opening. This is logical though, since the English term “oculus” is also simply borrowed from the Latin word for “eye.”