Funny expressions using "french" in English
As a French person, I’m always surprised to see how the word “French” is used in some English expressions or sentences. I’ve done some searching and here are the results:
French fries: It’s actually from
French kiss: We call it “kiss” here.
French manicure: French manicures may have originated in the XVIIIth century in
French press: The only French presses I have ever seen in my life were in the
French toast: They are called “pain perdu” (lost bread) in French. It comes from medieval times and was a way to use the old bread.
French dressing: French dressing is only called “vinaigrette” in
French bean: It is long, green and slim; called “haricot vert” (green bean) in French.
French horn: It seems that earlier horns and some horns used in Austria and France still use pistons but not the ones now-a-days, which make them “French”.
French bath: It consists in not taking a shower and spraying perfume instead. Funny to see how bad hygiene reputation French has!
Pardon my French: Whenever you swear, this will excuse you. Is it because we swear a lot in French?
5 commentaires:
Hi,
I'm French too (living in english-speaking Canada) and I did see French presses before (in France). I used to hear them being called "mélior" (I believe from a brand orignally?). It's a very efficient coffe-making process, although the best I know of is those italian made steam coffee machines where you blil water in the lower compartment, to generate steam in the upper compartment where the coffeee is. These do not rely on gravity to bring water down as on most machine, nor on mixing the coffee and water such as in Turkish coffee making.
Thanks for the post!
It's fun because a lot of the sentences aren't real in French ^^
Merci a toi! Je suis en ce moment aux USA et evidemment tout les americains me demandent pourquoi on appelle ceci et cela french... ou fremch,,,
Et ca commence a me souler!!! Je vais filer ce lien a mes chers amis ricains!
Thank you guys for all your comments, that was a fun post to write and I'm glad you liked it=]
Thanks ruyi for all this precious information about French !
A few more comment about some of it:
Actually a French kiss is a special kiss with the usage of what is inside. (The T...)
The French shower was acutally accurate at the time there were kings. It is said that Louis the 14th only took one (real) bath per year. And each years he tried to avoid it ;-)
Ironically the French manicure is now a expression used in France. Literally ! And if you are hype you say "to do a French" "Se faire faire une French"
Last, you may have missed “to take a french leave”, which again very ironically translate in french by “to take a english leave “
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