DICTIONARY OF MODERN COLLOQUIAL French DICTIONARY OF MODERN COLLOQUIAL French RENÉ JAMES HÉRAIL, L-ès-L., D.E.S., F.I.L. Lecturer in French, University of Leeds EDWIN A.LOVATT M.A., F.I.L. Lecturer in French, University of Leeds London and New York First published in 1984 by Routledge & Kegan Paul First published as a paperback 1987 This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2005. “To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.” Reprinted in 1990, 1992 and 1996 by Routledge 11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE 29 West 35th Street, New York NY 10001 Routledge is an International Thomson Publishing company © René James Hérail and Edwin A.Lovat 1984 All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Library of Congress Cataloguing-in-Publication Data Hérail, René James, 1939– Dictionary ofmodern colloquial French. 1. French language—Dictionaries—English. 2. French language—Spoken French—Dictionaries. 3. French language—Slang—Dictionaries. I. Lovatt, Edwin A., 1944– . II. Title. PC2640.H47 1984 443.′21 84–8231 British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN Master e-book ISBN ISBN (Adobe eReader Format) ISBN 0-415-05893-7 (Print Edition) To the memory of ERIC PARTRIDGE whose work inspired us CONTENTS PREFACE vi PRÉFACE xi ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS xv ABBREVIATIONS xvi DICTIONARY 1 PREFACE It is a notorious fact that prefaces in dictionaries are seldom read. To those, not- so-few we hope, who will have braved cradition and actually turned to these pages rather than plunge headlong into the 8000 or so headwords we strive to lexicalize, here are a few thoughts and perhaps also a mode d’emploi. Because this bilingual dictionary is intended to assist both French and English speakers, this preface is followed by a préface; both introductions attempt to define how each native speaker can best make use of this volume. Where English speakers are concerned, this dictionary was conceived in order to ‘bridge the gap between the kind of standard French taught in schools, colleges and universities and the less formal language that visitors to France are likely to be confronted with in everyday life. Since the 1930s, French literature has undergone a radical transformation and the once-clear distinction between written and spoken language has been blurred. The natural consequence of this movement has been that many hitherto shunned, taboo or outlandish words and expressions are now the common currency of every medium of communication. With the whirlwind growth of transcontinental television through cables and satellites, the English speaker is more and more frequently confronted with a bewildering range of ‘new French’—the kind of ‘off-the-shelf’ language that many trad francophones could be forgiven for ignoring. The movement from spoken to written is swifter than ever and this book is offered as a deciphering agent for those avid listeners, viewers and readers who have hitherto felt excluded from that humorous and secret language that contributed so much to making them feel ‘foreign’. Our initial aim in this reference work is to enable the non-native speaker to ‘get the drift’ of what has been written or said in French and, equally important, to ‘tune into’ the foreign language wavelength. It is certainly necessary in language comprehension that the listener/reader, before attempting to become a speaker, should be able to weigh up the colloquiality of a word or expression through its contextualizations in both languages. Efforts at becoming a ‘slangophone’ should nearly always be discouraged, but in this instance, such advice is more pertinent when directed at our French readership. In any case, indiscriminate use of colloquiality can prove to be as perilous as juggling with a Doulton china tea-service. When caught out, the unwary novice can only blush vii and admit failure—perhaps easier to get over in the circus ring than in a tight social situation! Our aim is to encourage understanding, but to discourage adventurous sorties into unknown territory. The general approach to dictionaries is that they should offer instant solutions. In the field of colloquial lexicography, this is even harder to achieve than within standard language; whereas ‘tried and tested’ words, all part of the established lexis, need only be situated as to their specific usage and meanings often without the need of contextualization, colloquial language is by its very nature practically meaningless without the support of back-up phrases that help situate the degree of colloquiality. Rather than arbitrarily grade words as ‘vulgar, obscene’, etc. or resort to a ‘star-rating system’, we have endeavoured to place words within standard expressions in both languages, enabling the readers to make up their minds as to the true meaning of a particular linguistic stumbling-block. Throughout the ten years it has taken us to compile this work, we have had to come to terms with the fact that most ‘natives’ from either culture have a surprising number of blank spots in the realm of colloquial language. ‘I didn’t know you could say that’ has probably been the most uttered reply we received when we were double-checking public response to what we thought were perfectly comprehensible words and expressions. Working knee-deep in colloquiality, it would have been easy to take it for granted that to the francophone colloquial French is everyday meat, and that to the English speaker English slang is a very frequented area of communication. Having accepted the fact that only a limited number of individuals hold a comprehensive range of ‘fringe’ words and expressions in their language bank, we resorted to what may at first seem rather condescending, namely to give lexicalized words, wherever possible, three definitions in English—the first register-keyed to the French, the second less colloquial, the third in what could be termed ‘standard English’ or phrased to explain the hitherto untranslatable. In a way, we see this as a dictionary within a dictionary. How many of us could possibly be expected to know the meaning of ‘cottage’—a word with which only male homosexuals are likely to be familiar? It is not our intention here to embark upon a lengthy explanation of how the dictionary should be used. The method is entirely logical and, we hope, transparent. Each headword is assigned a grammatical category and an alternative spelling if one exists. When the word has several meanings these are given in a numerical sequence with ‘straight’ (i.e. literal) meanings first, followed by metaphorical extensions; any more figurative usages involving other verbs or nouns come next. Many headwords or sub-headings have added comments, anecdotes or historical information which should be of interest to the reader. Throughout our formative years at school and university, and even at the time of writing these lines, our biggest gripe where dictionaries are concerned is the near-insolent manner in which some major works treat their readership. Our most abhorred word has always been ‘See:’, referring the word-searcher to viii another entry which itself in turn seems quite willing to ‘pass the parcel’ onto another totally unexpected headword. This is, to us, a rather unethical practice that can only result in well-thumbed volumes and despondency where language students are concerned. Our own experience as teachers of French in British universities is that young people often see dictionaries as a greater source of error than their own fallible memory. At the risk of seeming repetitive and increasing the sheer bulk of this volume, we have chosen to overlap as much as is decently acceptable, particularly where expressions can be located under several keywords. Beyond being two dictionaries in one, this work attempts to introduce the kind of anecdotic information that gives a totally new dimension to hitherto untraceable words. In some instances, we rely on standard etymological sources, in others we accept the fact that popular etymology ‘rules O.K.’. Wherever possible we have not hesitated to introduce la petite histoire to explain the birth or survival of words or expressions. When asked what problems confronted us while compiling a dictionary of modern colloquial French, we have often resorted to the image of a person firing a shot from a moving train onto a target travelling on another train in motion. French and English are langues vivantes constantly acquiring new words and discarding redundant ones and nowhere is this more evident than in the realm of speech. In the introduction to The Synonym Finder (Rodale Press) Laurence Urdang says ‘there is no such thing as a true synonym.’ Paraphrasing this great linguist, we could say ‘there is no such thing as a perfect translation.’ Frequency, distribution and connotation are never really truly matching. Our efforts at offering register-keyed equivalents should therefore be seen as learned attempts rather than dogmatic assertions. Because it is so difficult to dissociate colloquial speech from standard language, we have as often as necessary resorted to inverted commas to indicate that an English word or expression is colloquial. To many a ‘purist’ it would have been wise to cite only literary or ‘confirmed’ sources for our material, but being basically impure we readily proclaim that ‘les mots dans le vent’, often merely overheard, are worthy of recording for their intrinsic linguistic value. We are providing a rich description of the language— let he who draws up a prescription from it beware! The sheer volume of work needed to ensure documented accuracy of the colloquial language would render a dictionary such as this impossible to complete—even a computer is only as willing as those who feed it are diligent. In an age of memory banks, word processors and fifth-generation computer technology, our dictionary compiled over these ten years on 6″ × 4″ cards smacks more of ‘cottage industry’ than the kind of team lexicography with massive back-up and secretarial support that other projects have enjoyed. This ‘manuel’ was truly manually produced and only in the ultimate typesetting stage were we able to rely on twentieth-century technology through the University of Leeds Printing Service. ix Lexicographers, it has to be said, must rely heavily on fellow lexicographers and existing works. It would indeed be most misleading to intimate that we set about compiling this work without referring to past and present dictionaries. If for no other reason than the constant reassurance that we were not missing any word, our 6″ working table was always laden with as many as two dozen reference works and we depended on the availability of hundreds of books, magazines, tapes, etc. from which to draw substantiation through examples. Access to thousands of hours of sound material from the radio archives of several French-speaking radio stations was also a great asset. Our greatest debt of gratitude is owed to those many students of Leeds University French Department who kept us informed of noteworthy and stable linguistic arrivals. Without the newspaper cuttings, bandes dessinées, and sound recordings they collected for us during their ‘Year Abroad’, we would, indeed, have been starved of up-to-date material. Whenever a lexicalized word was only previously to be found in a single dictionary, we have felt the need to acknowledge this ‘borrowing’, but not without first checking that the word was indeed known to French speakers. The greatest problem facing lexicographers of the colloquial language relates to what to exclude and what to include. On the level of exclusion we have knowingly avoided only half a dozen extremely obscene words, the kind of terms that are both so indecent and far-fetched as to warrant a blue pencil in any manuscript. Where sexism, racialism or anti-semitism raises its ugly little head in language, we have followed Bernard Levin’s precept as voiced in an article entitled ‘By definition, a word to the unwise’ (The Times, 29 January 1980) and included that mass of words that reflect society’s prejudices. Mr Shloimovitz is certainly right in condemning the use of slanderous terms; to ignore them as a lexicographer is ‘a sin against linguistic integrity’. In each case we have endeavoured to indicate how derogatory such appellations were and clearly dissociated standard usage from verbal abuse. Whereas exclusion was a reasonably easy task, our great problem over the years concerned what to include. If we had followed all the advice we were given and taken each and every hint, our dictionary would have more than a fair sprinkling of regionalisms and hosts of minority-interest words. To treat a dictionary like a refuge for homeless words is, in our opinion, to abuse the good- natured credulity of the readership. Giving a fleetingly overheard expletive or a contrived neologism pride of place in a small reference work is to claim usage by a fair proportion of French-speaking society. Our aim has always been to ‘let the dust settle’ and only really offer lexicalization to newcomers when they have, so to speak, proven themselves. In a work spanning over fifty years, we have, wherever relevant, given some idea as to when the word or expression enjoyed its greatest vogue. To exclude words because they are no longer in current usage is, in a way, to deny the reader of contemporary literature the full comprehension he seeks. On the other hand, to preserve artificially in formaldehyde a defunct language is a practice to be avoided. We have tried carefully to strike a happy