Day 3061 (Saturday) 25th October 2025

This is Nice

and this is Monaco.

 

Last night we went up the hill to meet a couple who are looking for someone to look after their place for Airbnb guests. They seemed nice enough and maybe we’ll take it on – we’ll do the first one and see if it’s worth what they’re paying. They live on the same street as Suzanne which is just up the road from us so it’ll be very convenient and it’s a really pretty street, they can put plants out the front where we can’t because cars are allowed down our street.

There was another cruise ship in the bay this morning and the passengers had a fairly nice day for it – it was mostly sunny with a few clouds.

Suzanne is going back to the UK tomorrow for a week and she and Dee invited us for lunch to say bon voyage. The walk up the hill was as pretty as ever.

We went to the restaurant that used to be called the Belle Epoque back in the day and it will always be the Belle Epoque to me. This is where we usually have our new year’s lunch and I was hoping to see Manuel to start arranging it but he was in London. Our waiter spoke beautiful English and he turned out to be Dutch and he was a lovely man but he stuffed up our order a few times. Dee and Suzanne ordered steak, Huw ordered a fish dish and I ordered coq au vin. I was a bit confused when he asked if I wanted it well done or pink – obviously I said well done and off he went.

When the food arrived I had no idea what was put in front of me – it turned out to be calves’ liver. I felt awful putting him right but my coq au vin arrived quite soon.  Then I asked for a glass of rosé and he forgot to deliver it, finally it came to me. At the end of the lunch Suzanne asked for a coffee and he forgot that as well. By now it was very funny and he was suitably embarrassed, he gave us a few drinks for free – we ended up paying 30€ less than the bill. It was so amusing that I don’t think we needed a discount but he also gave us a Limoncello to finish our meal. 

La Vache ! The strange origins of six French curse words

Cows drink upon their arrival to the Freundstein farm-inn after their first transhumance, in Willer-sur-Thur, northeastern France on May 13, 2024. (Photo by Jean-Christophe Verhaegen / AFP)

Ever wondered why the French curse the way they do? Writer Hattie Ditton tries to get to the bottom of a few of the most common swear words.

Sacré bleu ! 

This phrase (actually written sacrebleu in French) originally came from the once highly offensive "Sacré Dieu" (Holy God), a phrase many considered to be blasphemous.

Over time, people changed it to Sacré bleu, in order to get away with using the profanity  - and it seemed to stick.

Nowadays, you virtually never hear this  - and if you do it's likely to be from an extremely elderly person, or it is being used ironically. It's roughly as archaic as people saying "cripes" or "golly gosh" in English.

The only people who seem to still love it are headline writers in English language media, for some reason.

 

Zut !

If you've ever heard someone trying to impersonate a Frenchman, you've probably heard Zut alors - but you'll rarely hear that from an actual French person. However, you might still hear zut being muttered. 

It is widely agreed that the phrase has been made up of two elements: One suggestion is that it is from the expression allons, hut, which from as early as 1791 was used by peasants as a vulgar way of expressing ‘come on, stop!’

The ‘z’ then comes from the liaison of the ‘s’ with beginning of ‘hut’. Another alternative is that it is the fusion of words zest and flûte, two terms of exasperation.

Others say it's a toned down euphemism for rather stronger foutre, meaning ‘f**k’. Either way, the word is hardly vulgar at all and would be the equivalent of ‘darn!’ in English.

Oh la vache.

This is a particularly unusual expression for a non-French speaker.

It literally translates to “Oh the cow!” but actually means something like 'my God', 'wow' or 'I don't believe it'.

It apparently dates back to the seventeenth century, when farmers would bring cows into towns and villages to ensure the milk they were selling was fresh.

This would be met by exclamations of Oh la vache! by the bourgeois people of the town.

Since then, it has wormed its way into everyday conversation, to express shock or horror and is used frequently by French people of all ages - it's not vulgar or offensive so can be used in all situations where you don't want to swear.

Merde

An old French favourite, merde has a secondary meaning that you may not know about, dating back to the 19th century.

Then, as now, the primary meaning of merde was a rude word for faecal matter - shit, in other words.

However its secondary meaning comes from theatrical performances, to which the elite would travel by horse and carriage and then leave their horse out the front. 

Spectators would have to walk through the horse merde to get inside, and the more manure that was traipsed into the theatre meant more ticket buyers (and therefore a better show). Merde became associated with good fortune and it became commonplace to wish actors luck with this word - similar to the English tradition of telling actors to 'break a leg' to wish them luck before a performance.

Today it is mainly used as a swear word, but you may hear people wishing each other luck in an exam or performance by saying merde.

Putain

Possibly the most commonly used French expletive, Putain comes from ‘put’, meaning dirty, which in turn is derivative of verb ‘puer’ which means ‘to smell bad’. Putain translates to “whore” or "prostitute”. Knowing this, it can seem shocking when you first hear it being thrown about in the street (which you will frequently).

However these days it is virtually never used to refer to a sex worker, and is in fact France's all-purpose swear-word. It's often translated into English as 'f**k' although in fact its strength varies - it can be used as a mild curse roughly on a par with 'crap' or as a full-on foul word like 'f**k'. One thing for sure, you'll certainly hear it a lot in France.

These days the French equivalent of 'whore' would be more likely to be 'pute' and that could be used as either an extremely offensive insult towards a woman, or as a colloquial term to describe someone who is actually a sex worker, roughly equivalent to hooker.

Oh là là.

Everyone in the world knows the French phrase Oh là là. But where did it come from? And do people really say it?

Firstly, yes they do - all the time. However, even French people will tell you that it has no real meaning. It seems no one actually knows where it came from but is just one of those things they say.

Maybe simply because it's fun to say, from the mild oh là right up to the full-on shock of oh là là là là là là (always six).

Even the English have adopted it - although it's not used in the same way as in French. While in French it's an all-purpose expression of surprise, anglophones use it - with an oooh rather than an oh - to mean something risqué or sexual.