Pardon My French: Unleash Your Inner Gaul by Charles Timoney

Author:Charles Timoney
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780141911076
Publisher: Avery
Published: 2007-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Gare! Gare! with an exclamation mark after it has nothing to do with gare without one. You probably know that ‘une gare’ is a railway station – in my O Level French textbook, people spent an inordinate amount of time asking the way to the nearest one. Knowing this, I was perplexed to read a newspaper headline which proclaimed: ‘Gare aux explosions!’ because it seemed to have nothing to do with stations. Gare! means watch out and comes from the verb ‘se garer’, which usually means to park your car but in this context means to watch out for, or to avoid something. A painter would urge you to mind the wet paint by saying, ‘Gare à la peinture!’, while an irritable parent would tell a young child to do something and back it up with a threat to ‘Gare à toi!’ if they don’t, or, worse, ‘Gare à tes fesses!’, warning them to watch out for a smack. You might think that you should say ‘garez!’ to someone you say ‘vous’ to, but gare! is an interjection not an imperative, so you don’t. If you do something spontaneously, or without warning, you do it ‘Sans crier gare!’

Gentil This is the other of the two French adjectives (see BRAVE) that, while it can be meant in a friendly, flattering way, can also be somewhat less complimentary. In its polite sense, it means kind or nice. You can thank someone by saying, ‘Merci. Vous êtes très gentil,’ or observe some act of kindness with the words ‘C’est gentil’ and no one will take offence. You can even compliment someone on their charming home by remarking, ‘C’est gentil chez vous,’ but I wouldn’t necessarily want anyone to say that about our house. Where things start to go downhill is when you say of someone – and of course never to their face – ‘Il est très gentil, mais …’ or simply ‘Il est gentil …’ in a sarcastic tone, with a sneer on your face. Said like that, gentil conveys the meaning that he is a nice enough person, I suppose, but that is really all that can be said about him. Quite a lot for such a short simple word.

Glace sans tain I had to include this notably because it was only when checking in a dictionary that I discovered that it is tain and not ‘teint’ as I had long assumed. In truth, I find the French phrase and the corresponding English one equally annoying as neither description is accurate. The British call this a two-way mirror, but that is exactly what it isn’t. You can see through it only from one side; you can’t see through the other at all because it is shiny. If you could see through it both ways, there wouldn’t be much point in having it and it would be called a window. The French version is annoying because it means mirror without silvering, but the mirror does have silvering, or rather the modern equivalent of it.

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