Talk:List of French phrases used by English speakers

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[edit] Cul de Sac

"Cul de sac" literally means the closed end of a bag. The metaphor with a dead end is very clear. The expression is commonly used in spoken language, but a dead street road will be named "impasse" on a street/road sign. Although Cul is considered a rather vulgar/argotic word in contemporary French, it's the proper word for your back. People quite never know how to tell about it as it can't be the subject of a very normal discussion. I believe the same happens in English. But derivatives are in wide use like. "Reculer" is the very normal verb for going backwards, and "Enculer" is as disgratious a word as the act it describes (gays should disagree). More rare "Cul de basse fosse" tells of a dirty, wet, semi-improvised medieval custody.

"Cul de sac" is used in the UK to mean "dead end road". It is "good", i.e. meaningful, French as of some centuries ago, but is now very vulgar and this metaphorical meaning wouldn't be understood by Frenchmen who would say "impasse" instead. Yet they have no problem calling a Dandelion - which is supposed to be a corruption of "dent de lion" from a fancied resemblance - "pisse en lit" from its (supposed?) medical properties...fuck and stuff

not true. Cul de sac is not really vulgar (asshole is very vulgar, and I guess somebody could be sued here if using that insult over somebody else). In fact, not only do we understand cul de sac metaphorical meaning, but we also still use it quite a lot !
prononciation of cul de sac: english speaking people pronounce the l at the end of cul, we don't. And there's the u pronounciation that is also different. But, a cul is a cul anyway...
as for dandelion, which we call pissenlit, it is great in salad, with vinegar, oil, salt, piece of larded bacon and walnuts. And yes, it has medical properties. You don't need any proof from scientific guys. Just pick some in your garden, make yourself a salad, and check out what happen :-)
growing up in the west of Ireland, we used to call Dandelions "pissybeds", although I never heard it being used anywhere else in the English speaking world or media...
'pisse on lit' is also used in southern Louisiana to refer to a kind of marsh plant quite unlike a dandelion; but the understanding of the name (i.e. if you eat it you will wet the bed) is the same.

[edit] MAYDAY

I've removed the following from the article, for various reasons. Could non-french speakers please check the spelling of phrases before they add them. Tarquin

  • M'aider! -- Someone, help me! ("May day!") -- this is highly doubtful etymology. Someone needs to check this, but AFAIK the english word "Mayday" was chosen as a distress codeword because it's easily pronouceable in most languages.
It is m'aidez (help me), I believe. It is definitely French and there are several other air/sea rescue terms that are similarly French and given phonetic English translation/pronunciation thingies, but I don't have my reference here. I'll look it up.
It is m'aidez; I've seen it written that way in French. -phma
yes, so have I. I am fairly sure it's false etymology. -- Tarquin
I'm pretty certain this etymology of "Mayday" is a made-up myth. "Help me" in French would be aidez-moi, not *"m'aidez". -- Timwi 21:13 26 Jun 2003 (UTC)
No. "M'aidez" is correct. It has the same principle of "Je t'aime" and "Va, je ne te hais point" (Go, I don't hate you).
It's true. French was at one time the "official" language of international communication. (Consider lingua franca). Inmarsat radio-telephone calls to ships were billed in gold francs. Consider also the radio terms securite and pan-pan, seelonce,seelonce feenee. All are of French origin. Reference: US Coastguard Handbook. User:Anjouli|Anjouli]] 18:15, 8 Dec 2003 (UTC)
  • canard orange -- orange duck -- is this meant to be "duck a l'orange?"; shades of Fawlty Towers ;-)
  • clairvoyant -- clear seeing (psychic) -- I'd say this is now integrated into English. A fair test is that it would seem totally wrong used in italics
an excellent and reliable test!
  • un auteur -- an author -- this is not used to mean the same thing as "author". however none of my dictionaries have it. probably belongs in the article but needs a better explanation. the french word auteur does have a much larger meaning that author, also the founder of a race, the perpetrator of a crime...
In English, it almost always means "film director who controls everything about the film, or other controller of an artistic situation". This may be one of those "French expressions not used in French".
  • Je temps -- ? (Pronounced Ja temp) -- is this meant to be "j'attends" ?

[edit] Bonbons & Café

WHEN do English speakers use these terms? "des bonbons"? "le cafe"? Not in my experience. We might say bon bons, but that's become an English term. We might say cafe, but more likely cafe latte when speaking of coffee and cafe when speaking of a place to eat, but not with the accent mark. -- Zoe

The café accent is surprisingly common, and of course it is always pronounced with the accent, but I agree, bonbons are bonbons. French words in English would be a much longer article.Ortolan88
Not French, I'm afraid, just home-grown American.  :-)
café (with the accent) is an English word. It is in the Concise Oxford Dictionary, with the accent. Anjouli 18:35, 8 Dec 2003 (UTC)

[edit] Nom de guerre

What is an assumed name used by a photographer?

A nom Daguerre. -[[User:PierreAbbat|PierreAbbat]

ha ha ha! :D

[edit] MAYDAY (again)

Shouldn't the "m'aidez" expression move to the "used in english but not in french" section ? Does anyone really say or write "m'aidez" in modern French ? I would not (and French is my mother tongue) -- I would say "aidez-moi"... or if I really mean "mayday" in a french text I would spell it "mayday" not "m'aidez". FvdP

The OED explains it as either a phonetic representation of French m'aider, the imperative infinitive of 'help me!', or a shortening of venez m'aider. So I changed the spelling in the article to "m'aider". Like some others (above) I thought it was a false etymology, but I was wrong. -- user:Heron
There's a whole series of words used for communications of distress at sea and in the air that were intentionally based on French that most speakers could reproduce. My own source, unfortunately, is out doing its duty on a boat somewhere, but I will try to put the information together for this article. Ortolan88
There you go! I took out a few words that were just of French origin, not really French any more, and also italicized all the French. Zut alors! Ortolan88 17:57 Aug 26, 2002 (PDT)

[edit] Nom de plume, Nom de guerre, l'esprit de l'escalier

About
nom de plume -- literal translation of pen name, for which the French say nom de guerre

nom de plume : we do use the sentence, exactly for the signification you give : pen name. Usually for a professional writer who doesnot write under his real name, e.g. San Antonio
We also use nom de guerre : it does have a more general signification (not only in litterature), it is another name with attach to us in a given situation where we don't wish to use our proper name for secret, or for practicity or for fun. Whatever. Here, I could say user:anthere is my nom de guerre, but probably not my nom de plume (as I am no professional writer :-)). But, we use both.

Besides, I have never heard l'esprit de l'escalier. Never.

I have often heard "l'esprit de l'escalier," the trait is common in my (Belgian) family: while visiting a family member, one doesn't know what to talk about, then while going out the door or down the stair case: "Ah! I almost forgot! I must tell you..." A one-hour conversation follows on the doorstep. Of aunts which exhibit that trait in a particularly pronounced matter, we say "celle-là, elle a vraiment l'esprit de l'escalier". -- Tonymec 04:48, 26 August 2005 (UTC)

I guess the two expressions are used or not depending on the country (canada and france maybe ?). If so, it seems hardly reasonable to introduce the notion of french phrases being used in english but not in french. french used in canada or african countries or france or belgium can be pretty different.


It's de l'esprit d'escalier. "Staircase wit", not "spirit of the staircase"... Fowler notes that le mot juste is not used in French the way it is used in English, and I agree. Also, "deja vu" and "coup d'etat" are now commonly used in English: there's a bit of a grey area. I'm still not convinced of the usefulness of this page. Wikipedia is not a dictionary, etc. -- Tarquin

Three points:
  1. The article nearly 1100 hits. Besides, it is an article about French phrases in English, not a dictionary entry, and the stuff I just added on sea-air rescue is the most concise summary anywhere on the Web. All in all a great Google draw.
  2. As for "staircase wit", the OED attributes the French phrase to Diderot (our distinguished French predecessor in the encyclopedia biz) in his Paradoxe sur le comédien and gives the form as esprit de l'escalier or esprit d'escalier, with the definition "a retort or remark that occurs to a person after the opportunity to make it has passed".
  3. It has been theorized that nom de plume originated in English and was passed back into French.
Ortolan88 09:27 Aug 27, 2002 (PDT)
Orto, the air-sea stuff is great. IMO it drags this article kicking & screaming into the realm of being useful, rather than just a random collation of badly remembered schoolday French. L'esprit d'escalier: we agree on the definition: the "staircase" part is a metaphor. I didn't know about the alternative version. -- Tarquin 12:46 Aug 27, 2002 (PDT)

Tarquin, about the usefullness of this article : you might be right if you see only the dictionary side of it. But, that may go further. The user might be interested in knowing when the foreign word was introduced in the language, and if there?s a specific (technical need, historical background?) reason for that. There maybe much to be said on these sea-air rescue words. I, as a casual reader, would be interested.
The user could also be interested in discovering how much these words, these expressions here, have different meanings from the original one, even though most might still consider them french. But they are already slowly drifting. That's the drift that is interesting. That's on the drift that work should be done. Because, unless we understand there is a drift, we will misunderstand each other. Meaning distorsion may be accompanied with loss of information, or pre-eminence of one direction of significance over another, and may leave foreign readers dubious, as words written similar or identical may not have the same meaning.

[edit] Le mot juste

Concerning le mot juste: means the same literal thing in French, but isn't used in the particular context English-speakers use it. What is that particular context?

[edit] Nom de plume (again)

I changed nom de plume from category, because it is used in french with exactely the same meaning, although pseudonyme (pseudonym) is more common. -- Looxix 23:47 May 7, 2003 (UTC)

[edit] Pronunciation

the final letter is silent (unless it's "r" or "&agrave" or "&eacute")

This just mentioned "r" originally; adding "&agrave" and "&eacute" was my attempt to cover some obvious exceptions, but this still seems a strange description of pronunciation. Improvements, anyone? Andy G 22:48 26 Jun 2003 (UTC)

The mention of the final stress sounds weird to me. There is very little stress in french language; if there is, it often depends on the region. ant

[edit] Un ange passe

Never heard of it. Am I just ignorant? Heard all the others. When is something "used by English speakers" and when is it just an arbitrary French phrase? Andy G 22:56 26 Jun 2003 (UTC) (English)

I think that is a fair question. It's not in any of my dictionaries or thesauruses. I have heard it on both the small and the large screen; used by native English speakers. It is definitely very affected and snooty. Usually uttered to take some or all in company down not just one but several pegs. Often it's meaning is also made explicit by someone explaining it outloud unless the whole point is to demonstrate that everybody in audience is especially cultured and knows it. I wouldn't mind if we just drop it. The phrase is used, but definitely not in any everyday manner. BTW, don't try googling for it; gets gazillions of hits, but most are either French Language or some Art Exhibition by that name. -- Cimon Avaro on a pogo stick
'tis funny, because in french language, it is not snooty at all to use that sentence, and certainly is not used by particularly cultured audience (actually, maybe even quite the opposite). This is always curious to me to see that sentences used with similar meanings hold so much different cultural weight. If you hear it from a french person, don't think they are downsiding you in the least. That is just a nice and rather community sealing piece of word. We use it typically when there is a silence during a gathering. It is only meant to lighten the atmosphere and unite people in a shared gentle and funny comment. user:anthere
Scratch that. Definitely the phrase has no place on the list. In the bin it goes. -- Cimon Avaro on a pogo stick 06:09 27 Jun 2003 (UTC)

[edit] Confusion

I find this page confusing. Is it supposed to list French phrases that are used regularly by English speakers, but are not yet part of the English language? This is always going to be a very narrow band, falling between those well-known enough to be regular english and those used by Anglophones with some French knowledge. I find the following entries to be problematic:

  • a la mode, coup de grace, coup d'etat, (and coup de main), je ne sais quois, touche, hors d'ouvres, croissant, saute, deja vu are all part of English (most of them are in my dictionary). On the other hand I've never heard anyone say 'oui' or 'non' unless in a French context (sometimes 'mais oui' or 'mais non').

What exactly should be in here? DJ Clayworth 16:57, 5 Dec 2003 (UTC)

I went through the article and removed phrases that I found in my English dictionary. Those getting the cut included: coup de grace, coup d'etat, je ne sais quois, touche, hors d'ouvres, croissant, saute, deja vu.

DJ Clayworth 14:47, 8 Dec 2003 (UTC)

do you consider these to be english phrases because they are in your dictionnary ? Does hors d'œuvres sound english to you ? Ant
Absolutely yes. The fact this it derives from the French does not mean it's not part of the English language. The whole point of this article, as I understand it, is that phrases move across languages. People start using phrases from other languages, often because there is no equivalent in (in this case) English. As a phrase gets used more and more it becomes more widely understood, and eventually gets accepted into English, like Restaurant, or 'a la mode' in North America. I would say that if a word is in an English dictionary it's part of English. DJ Clayworth 18:18, 8 Dec 2003 (UTC)
curious. We widely use week-end, which is an english word, and is in our dictionary. We would never try to pretend it is a french word. Very curious. I think that page is basically meaningless then :-) ant


The article seems to define itself into oblivion. If a term is genuine French and rarely used by the English, then people object. On the other hand, if it is so widely used that it is in some English dictionaries, people also object. What's left? A few phrases in the transitional phase? Perhaps we should rename it English phrases of recent French derivation.Anjouli 18:41, 8 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Phrases mentioned in English dictionaries, but in italics, or with French diacritics and/or French pronunciation, are exactly what is supposed to be listed here. So: coup de grâce pron. koo de(r) grass, not kowp dee grayce; coup d'état pron. (approx.) koo day tah, not kowp dee tatt; je ne sais quoi pron. zhe(r)n say kwah, not djee nee sice quoy; hors-d'œuvre pron. or-de(r)vr; sauté pron. sowtay, not sawtee; déjà vu pron. day-zhah vü or day-zhah view, not dee-jay voo, garçon pron. gar-sõ (nasalised), not gar-sonn or gar-konn. Notice the acute, grave and circumflex accents, the cedilla, the mandatory oe digraph, and the definitely non-English pronunciation. (ü approx. as in German; e(r) with non-rhotic [not pronounced] "r") -- Tonymec 05:11, 26 August 2005 (UTC)
I would have to agree with Tonymec, that this page is a good place to put words of French origin that are commonly used by English speakers, but are not yet to the point where English speakers use English "sounds" to speak them. Except the line is a bit blurry, for example: "a la mode" seems to me at this point to be fully English, to the point where many people speaking it don't even think of it as French and pronounce it with English sounds. You might say that this page creates a false category, wherein words that have been adopted into English to wildly varying degrees are lumped together only because their original pronunciations are "exotic" to English speakers, or because they simply "look French", which could be entirely different from person to person.
In any case, it seems that if this page is to remain the opening paragraph should explain better what belongs here and what doesn't, rather than referring to words that do or do not "need italics". -- Cesoid 23 October 2005
I've added some entries with Cesoid's criterion in mind, i.e., "words of French origin that are commonly used by English speakers, but are not yet to the point where English speakers use English 'sounds' to speak them." Some may be borderline, but for the most part I delberately left out words that struck me as just-the-normal-way-to-say-it (e.g., entrepreneur, façade, masseuse, negligee) as opposed to words that people kind of go out of their way to flaunt as Gallicisms (e.g., bon vivant, déclassé, hauteur). I also left out food words (e.g., coq au vin, filet mignon, pâté de foie gras), just to avoid opening a can of worms (bon appétit). I basically had in mind two imaginary types of readers of the page: Englsih-speakers who would like to sound tres precious and need a crib sheet; and francophones who might be curious about what English-speakers do with their language. Squib 19:56, 24 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] RSVP

This is in the English and French section: répondez s'il vous plaît (R.S.V.P.), but I have been told in the past the French people never write RSVP on invitations etc. Should this be moved to the English but not in French section, or was I misinformed? Fabiform 00:06, 27 Jan 2004 (UTC)

we do sometimes use RSVP on invitation SweetLittleFluffyThing
As I noted on the main page, I haven't seen RSVP in French but I have seen RSLP in invitations engraved using Script typography, and written in the third person, as in:
La baronne Arthur de Montcul de Pétépluhaux prie [blank space] de lui faire l'honneur d'assister au mariage de sa fille Anne-Aymone avec le chevalier Auguste-Onésime du Pont du Rang. (then details about the where & when, and at the bottom:) R.S.L.P. (followed by the address of the baroness). (And I could translate this carton but maybe not explain to English-only-speakers why it is funny in French.) -- Tonymec 05:21, 26 August 2005 (UTC)
Though it may not be widely used, it is common enough. Plus, SVP is already widely used in French. Carthae 19:11, 15 March 2007 (UTC) Edit : I checked in the French Wikipedia, it exists.

[edit] Croître

I took out croître. When has this word ever been dropped into an English sentence, for goodness' sake? The whole rationale (<-- now there's one French word that does get used in English!) of this article seems to me somewhat dubious. 22.48 GMT on 5 March 2004.

[edit] Lists of English words of international origin

I stumbled across Lists of English words of international origin yesterday; there's an as yet unused entry for French - List of English words of French origin. I thought people who worked on this article might like to work on this list - it's probably the place where many of the "French" words which haven't made the cut for this article (hors d'ouvres, croissant, etc) should go. fabiform | talk 12:31, 29 Mar 2004 (UTC)

[edit] MAYDAY (again)

The marine distress signals based on French (MAYDAY, pan pan, et al), are now covered in detail on the Mayday page, so we have some duplication now. Which may be fine, but just a heads-up. Best, --257.47b.9½.-19 22:59, 6 Apr 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Cul de sac

Cul de sac is widely used in everyday and contemporary spoken French. Nothing vulgar about it. The sign boards use impasse or voie sans issue. The latest being more like administrative jargon, that no one would use in a conversation. Dents de Lion (Dandelion) is another word borrowed by English language, still in widespread use in France and Switzerland along with the mundane pissenlit.

By the way, it's now on List of English words of French origin, I think it belongs there rather than here because it's an English word/phrase now too. fabiform | talk 15:38, 16 Apr 2004 (UTC)
I was just in rural Quebec last week; dead-end roads were signposted "CUL DE SAC" where I'd see "NO EXIT" in Ontario. Some of those signs were newly made; I get the sense it's not completely out of date. Radagast 18:08, Sep 4, 2004 (UTC)
Indeed, while "cul" is equivalent to "arse" (Commonwealth English) / "ass" (US English) in some contexts, it is equivalent to "bottom" in others (meaning both "lower end" and "the buttocks or anus"), which is a neutral word in English. The French talk about "le cul d'une bouteille" (the bottom of a bottle). So "cul de sac" is has the literal translation "bottom of bag", not "arse/ass of bag". — Paul G 10:08, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] English-speakers?

Is it me, or is there some convention under which "English-speakers" with a hyphen means those who speak English, and "English speakers" with no hyphen means speakers who are English? Michael Hardy 20:46, 6 Jul 2004 (UTC)

[edit] The "Italics" Rule?

The so-called rule in the article that I've quoted below is very inexact and highly subjective, and thus doesn't belong as part of an encylopedia entry. I was tempted to just delete it ( Be bold!), but felt that it was probably better to solicit comments on the Talk page first before I did. [[User:GK|gK ¿?]] 08:29, 18 Nov 2004 (UTC)

"The general rule is that if the word or phrase looks better in italics, it has retained its French identity, but if it doesn't need italics, it has probably passed over into English."
It's a rule of thumb, pretty handy in this context, which is hardly over-encyclopedic (but entertaining). No harm done by keeping it. Ortolan88 05:32, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)
In my opinion, that rule of thumb is highly subjective and therefore practically useless. Thus, it has no place in an enclopedia because it does do harm.
Because I had to do some searching for some other grammar information, I checked several online grammar and style guides. Although all but one said that foreign words should be in italics (the exception being the US Govt. Printing Office), they included no guideliness on how to determine what was still a foreign word and what had been naturalized except the rather vague idea of "common knowledge". The Economist, in their style guide [1] had examples of words that would italacize that I would never think to put into italics, such as apartheid and status quo. The Chicago Manual of Style's Q&A section [2] did suggest relying upon a good dictionary, and even suggests that with the improvements in modern typesetting that accents will probably become more common. The real fun on my search, however, was reading what Fowler (The King’s English, 2nd ed. 1908.) had to say on using foreign words in English

([3]).

[edit] re: Seemingly French phrases used in English, but not in French

Shouldn't this section say something about the words and phrases being false friends? [[User:GK|gK ¿?]] 05:35, 26 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I would have to agree that this section needs some kind of introduction.

In addition, it almost looks like the list pertains only to the present and ignores whether some of these phrases might have been a figure of speech that has passed out of common French usage. This might not be the case, but declining to mention this possibility at all makes the list less believable. Or perhaps the intended implication is that all of these phrases were once used in French and are no more. Either way something should be said about it (by someone who knows the answer...not me!). cesoid 23 October 2005

[edit] Nom de Plume

I've just spotted this is in both sections one and two, which read as though they should be mutually exclusive - so which is correct? Thryduulf 11:48, 11 Jan 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Sang froid

I would like to suggest an entry for "sang froid." What say you all? Eddieuny 05:02, 18 July 2005 (UTC)

What does it mean?
the NOED has it written in one word, while in French it's always sang-froid (hyphenated). It's defined there as [ mass noun ] composure or coolness as shown in danger or under trying circumstances
-- Origin: mid 18th cent. from French sang-froid, literally "cold blood". -- Tonymec 05:29, 26 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Useful Links

  • I used to find this pretty useful.

[edit] Moved from Talk:née

How do you explain to someone with a tin ear how affected née looks in ordinary contexts? Look at Wikipedia's entries for popes: they're all né instead of "born" like normal folks! Genteel piety? "Benjamin Franklin, né in Philadelphia..." *erk* I don't think so! --Wetman 15:51, 14 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Whilst entertaining for about 3 seconds, I think that the joke of

replacing "Born" with "Nee" and then adding references to "Nee To Be Wild" (etc) is perhaps past its three seconds of amusement. I never expected to be deleting something as my first contribution. Oh well. Out they go Telsa 22:29, 21 Apr 2005 (UTC)

So it's alright to replace "née" with "born" in articles then? I've done it once or twice and added "This is not the French Wikipedia - use English!" to the discussion page, but I wasn't sure whether that was acceptable. I have no problem with French, and in fact I speak it, but there are many, many people who are monolingual English speakers and using any language other than English in the English Wikipedia just seems insensible. 67.160.224.250 20:25, 2 July 2006 (UTC)
I would say not. Wholesale changes like that tend to be controversial and generate more heat than light, and I would advise extreme caution. 'Leaving as the author of the first non-stub article wrote it' is the general rule for avoiding controversy - think of it as a means of embracing the diversity of the english language, which gladly steals 'loan-words' from everywhere. Opinions on this, and many other topics differ, and tend to attract zealotry. It's far better to contribute a well written article in whatever form of english you are comfortable with than to go around making seemingly minor edits that generate edit wars. Hope that helps. WLD 17:02, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] RSVP (again)

It seems that people are often using RSVP as a replacement for reply. I've got mails saying "Please RSVP", "Cover: $12 if you RSVP on time" or "Thank you to everyone who sent an RSVP". Considering that RSVP actually translates into Please reply, these phrases don't really make sense. Should this fact be mentioned in the article? Luzian 19:39, 5 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] names from French?

What about names for groups of people etc used in English that come from French? like Khmers Rouges (a Cambodian political group) or Nez Percé (an aboriginal people of North America) Would they qualify for this page?

Well... I don't know. If Nez Percé qualifies, then what about place names from the "Louisiana Purchase" states, from Baton Rouge (Bâton Rouge, French for "Red Stick") to Detroit (Détroit, French for "Straits" as in Straits of Dover)? — Tonymec 21:08, 8 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Belorussian and German links

IIUC, the Belorussian and German links on this article page resend to individual culinary specialties, not to collections of French phrases. I don't understand what they are doing here. - Tonymec 05:40, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Missing Phrase

I can't believe this isn't in here. Voulez vous couche avec mwa. ce swa? or something like that. It means: Do you want to sleep with me. This evening. I heard this in pop culture and in a song from Moulin Rouge. I didn't put it in because I don't know how to spell it.--God of War 17:27, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

It's "Voulez-vous couche avec moi. Ce sois" proper spelling

"Voulez-vous coucher avec moi (ce soir) ?" :) Korg (talk) 01:55, 20 February 2006 (UTC)
Yes, it's "voulez-vous coucher avec moi ce soir?" meaning "will you sleep with me tonight?" (idiomatic translation; a literal translation is "do you want to lie down with me this evening?"). Is this really used outside the song lyrics? — Paul G 10:03, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Fiancé(e)

Surely this word is so commonplace in English, it shouldn't be here? Dybeck 04:12, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Grand Prix

Surely this phrase is also so commonplace in English, it shouldn't be here. Dybeck 04:12, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Liaison

This one definitely shouldn't be here (commonplace English usage). Dybeck 04:12, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Mousse

And I also believe this one shouldn't be here (commonplace English usage). Dybeck 04:12, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Pardon

'Pardon' has appeared here. While I can see somebody pronouncing this word in a French manner, perhaps for comic effect, the word itself (in this sense) has been in the English language since 1548 (according to the Online Etymology dictionary). Should this be here?

[edit] Petard

The article defines this as a "metaphorical trap" in the sense of "hoist by one's own petard" and mentions the meaning as a medieval weapon. But really the phrase is "hoist on one own petard" and as such "petard" is used in a perfectly acceptable way and should be moved to the regular list Sumergocognito 03:36, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Move this page?

... to list of French phrases used in English? It seems more to the point. It's not phrases used by English-speaking people when they're speaking French. Michael Hardy 23:24, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

Agree. Kevlar67 08:22, 24 July 2006 (UTC)
Agree. The reference to "speaking" confuses the point. Louche 23:04, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Serious Revision

One, this article is way too long, and includes such expressions that I never even heard when I lived in France, and definitely have not heard in casual English speech. If there are not objections, I am going to remove approximately a fifth of these entries.

Two, I think this article should have words and phrases that are obviously French in origin like "Au contraire" and "coup d'état," even if they are in English dictionaries and everyone knows what they mean. This article should not be a list of expressions occaisonally used by hoity-toits.

(The reason I feel moved to do this is a West African colleague of mine -- after being surprised by how many words in French he asked for translations for could still be said in French while "speaking" English -- asked if I knew of a list of French expressions commonly used in English, so he can immediately augment his so-so English vocabulary. I immediately thought of wikipedia, but I don't want to send him this list because I feel it will send the wrong impression that so many French words can be used in conversation with monolingual anglophones, i.e. "à outrance," "bon ton," - are these really used by English speakers? "comme-ci, comme-ça" is fine, but isn't "comment allez-vous?" just straight-up French?)

Thoughts? JesseRafe 05:47, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

I removed about 40-45 entries. Each letter at a time for clarification. Man, this is tedious! And I don't assume my say is final, any of them can be placed back on this list, I'm just trying to do my part to sieve out the useful from the simply "French". JesseRafe 03:58, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
I'd replace: arriviste, au fait, manqué, métier, moue, lèse majesté, longueur, Louis Quinze, gamine, grande dame, frisson, embarras de richesse, all of which are used in English texts. There was a point in Britain when it was 'de rigeur' for people to have more than a passing knowledge of French to be regarded as educated. As a result, much french was used in texts of the period, only really petering out in the last 30 years or so. Knowledge of Latin and Ancient Greek have gone the same way. If usages are not current, then I'd suggest not simply deleting them, but marking them as obsolete/archaic - as any reader of older texts will have greater need of an easily available translation now than in the past, when the assumption that they would be obvious was more likely to be correct. WLD 10:04, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
Go ahead and re-add them. I was going to make another pass later today, removing a few more (the article is very beginning-of-the-alphabet heavy), so maybe you'd like to not add them until tomorrow?
Maybe the fact you're in England has some effect on the texts you read and come across these words more, whereas I'm in America and don't come across those words in normal writing, just perhaps in older British literature.
What I really want from this article is a list of unarguable words/expressions like "au naturel" and "a la mode" and "coup d'état" more than a large list of a specialized lexicon.
What you're suggesting for the archaic marker isn't a bad idea, and I was thinking of similar things to mark "déjà lu" and "déjà entendu" as, what I perceive, offshoots of "déjà vu", which is a very English expression now, and "déjà lu" just seems like a clever play off it, and one would have to know French to get it, rather than "déjà vu" which almost everyone knows. JesseRafe 16:05, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

I think this is way off base. The list needs to be more coherently defined first and only then pared down. (And yes, it does need to be pared down.) If anything, the article should be more "a list of expressions occaisonally used by hoity-toits" than "French expressions commonly used in English". Specifically, the article does not exist for the benefit of Francophones learning English, so the standard being applying here is pretty much wrecking the page. I'd like to see most of the deletions restored until some reasonable criteria are established for what would make this page the most useful and appropriate. Louche 23:04, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

It appears as if we absolutely and fundamentally disagree over this point. (Also I didn't mean to say I was doing this for his benefit, but just think of how hard it would be to be understood if you thought that all of these words on this list were allowable English).
Also I fully expected people to want to add some words back, which is why I edited down in the manner that I did, so that restoring the missing ones can be done at a glance, but I just wanted to start the ball rolling on what I thought needed to be down and could naturally follow no criteron other than my own. Perhaps separate sections for the "bon voyage" and "Chez Josephine"s and the hoity-toit words? JesseRafe 03:12, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] pièce de résistance

Is this really used in english to say the best? i think of it as meaning more, the final or finishing touch. WookMuff 09:38, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

It is seen in that context, as the pièce de résistance is often saved for the coup de grace. Louche 17:12, 8 September 2006 (UTC)
Except that it doesn't exist in French... it's a plat de résistance. Carthae 19:21, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] bourgeois and bourgeoisie

The definitions to these words incorrectly refer to the "privileged class" when in fact these words refer to the middle class.

Reference: http://www.answers.com/bourgeoisie&r=67

I've changed both entries to read middle class. Fricka 07:36, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] lieu

I've heard countless people say "in lieu of...". Isn't this of French origin or derivation? Chuffable 02:15, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

Lieu entered Middle English by at least A.D. 1250-1300 (via Old French). It's an English word. Louche 17:01, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Merge from List of French phrases

Any reason why List of French phrases is on a separate page? There's tonnes of overlap 'tween the two pages, and both have pretty much the same purpose. --Dangherous 15:57, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

The initial reason was that List of French phrases used by English speakers orginally was not correctly categorised, and was also (and even now) not a pure list format - the separate air-sea rescue and english only sections would need to be hived off into separate articles. Note that there are similar pages for Spanish, German, Latin and Greek, so a modicum of standardiastion might well be appropriate. WLD 17:12, 17 November 2006 (UTC)
I'd say the merge should go the other way--Josquius 10:29, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] How about bon vivant? Can we add that to the list?

How about bon vivant? Can we add that to the list?

[edit] Non-neutral tone

In particular, the parenthetical addition to "Do you want to sleep with me tonight" is quite unnecessary. The implication is that an English speaker might go to France and start spouting this off to anyone he/she sees. Of course, it is quite rude to say this phrase in most cultures, including English speaking cultures.

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