Tag Archives: French

C’est La Vie

My informant tells me that the first time he heard the phrase, he was seven and complaining about the rain on a beach day. His mother then sighed, and said “C’est la vie”, which translated roughly into “Such is life.”

Me: “What does this saying mean to you?”

Informant: “It means that some times you can’t change things and just have to accept life as it is.”

Analysis: This proverb may also have to do with dealing with bad luck, as sometimes the world may seem to intentionally mess with your plans. It is a phrase often said when life isn’t fair, but one has to deal with life. Similar American sayings are, “That’s the way the ball bounces”, or the more slang term, “Shit happens.”

In modern American culture, a popular response to “C’est la vie” is, “la vie”, a pun on the pronunciation of the words. (C’est la vie = Say ‘la vie’). This joke was present in the romantic comedy film, Easy A, featuring Emma Stone and Penn Badgley.

Annotation: “Easy A (2010)”. Box Office Mojo. Amazon.com. Retrieved January 27, 2011.

My informant was born in France, but currently goes to school at UC Irvine.

Merde

In the following, my informant recounts one of her pre-performance traditions:

So, in the last few days before we’re about to do a show, we have a tradition called “merde gifting,” where, everyone in the show buys everyone else a small present or treat, and like, it doesn’t have to , they don’t have to buy it, but, like, we make cookies, or little candies, or pencils, or even stuffed animals, it depends, but just something nice to give to the rest of the cast and show them you care about them. And then I guess the other part of it is, more than just giving gifts, you tell people merde before they go on stage, which is supposed to be like, good luck. It comes from french and I think it means “shit” and it means good luck on stage, don’t step in shit, because apparently cows would poop onstage in the olden times or something, I don’t know, but yeah, we tell each other merde and give each other presents before a show.

Although my informant does not know exactly where this tradition comes from, she believes it is derived from something more closely related to the meaning behind merde. However, by now it has simply come to mean “good luck,” and my informant and her fellow performers have expanded upon the word to include gifts, and other ways of showing support. Apparently it is part of a number of traditions designed to foster support among the cast before a show, and has been around for a long time.

Nightmare

Informant Bio

My informant is an office manager living in Hollywood, California. He grew up in the midwestern United States and moved to Los Angeles to attend USC’s graduate program in film production. He now does media work in an office at USC, and in his spare time stays active with creative endeavors like creating web videos and writing a web comic that updates twice weekly. He completes the daily crossword puzzle at lunch every day, and is the type of person who probably always wins Trivial Pursuit.

The Cauchemar

I was chatting with my informant (my boss) at our office – near the water cooler, yes,  it actually happens – and he told me a strange story about his roommate who had recently attempted astral projection (magical transportation of her consciousness to another place) by putting herself into a meditative state. Though her attempt was not successful, she did descend deep enough into her meditation that she had a dreamlike vision of a small, humanoid creature sitting in darkness. She asked it, “what are you doing?” It replied, “waiting.” Frightened by the image, she quickly snapped herself out of her meditative state.

My boss thought the creature sounded like a cauchemar. The cauchemar, he explained, is a demon-like creature whose name means “nightmare” in French. He had first learned of it from a friend who lived in Louisiana, though he suspected stories about the creature had been brought to Louisiana by the French because the myth “seems European.”

According to my informant, the cauchemar is an evil creature, that chooses its victims at random. It sits on your chest while you sleep and either: rides your sleeping body where ever it likes, or sucks the breath out of you, killing you slowly while you sleep. My informant thought that the cauchemar sounded like an explanation someone might have given for conditions that cause sleepers to wake in the middle of the night feeling pressure on their bodies, like sleep apnea.

Because the cauchemar does not discriminate when it chooses a victim, it seems to me to be a simple personification of nightmares. Its impossible to control whether or not one will have a nightmare, and that lack of control, especially while vulnerable (unconscious), is frightening. Giving them a face makes nightmares easier or us to understand, and even if depicted as a hideous, malicious creature, this is comforting.

Authored Forms

This painting of the creature from the 1700s  by Swiss painter Johann Heinrich Fussili supports my informant’s suspicion that the mythological creature may have been brought to the United States from Europe. It depicts an impish creature with large ears and fur covering its body, sitting on the chest of a woman in white. In spite of its comical appearance, the distressed pose of the sleeping woman, and the alarmed face of her horse suggest that this is indeed a creature to be feared.

Cited

Image found at: “Cauchemar.” Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., 4 Mar. 2012. Web. 24 Apr. 2012. <http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cauchemar>.

French Idioms: It’s All About Food (Or Is It?)

Interview Extraction:

Informant: “So French sayings… there are some sayings that I’ve told you before, one of them would be, ‘Ok the deal is done. You say, the carrots are cooked.’ The original version is “Les carrottes sont cuites.”

Interviewer: “And where did you first hear that?”

Informant: “Well, I was growing up.  Ok, now I am drinking out of a bottle. And this is the last drop, and I would say normally, ‘hey, the bottle is empty.’ But now I can say, ‘La fin des haricots’. ‘It’s the end of the beans!'”

Interviewer: “So ‘the end of the beans’ is a drinking saying?”

Informant: “No, it’s just something that you say. There is no more beans.  It’s kind of interchangeable with the other one that says the carrots are cooked. It’s done, it’s finished. It’s ready to eat in one case, and in the other case you have to go and get more.”

Analysis: 

An important aspect of French culture is French cuisine, and this love for food can even be seen in French expressions.  The first expression, “Les carrottes sont cuites” or in English “the carrots are cooked” is an idiom expressing that the event is over, or as my informant put it “the deal is done.”  This expression came from the idea that you would cook your carrots with your meat.  For this reason, the cooked carrots were associated with death. Therefore, “les carrottes sont cuites”  is a colloquial expression used ironically in a serious situation.  It means that something has gone disastrous, or that “it is all over”.  This expression can be used when the situation is very serious, but the person using the expression is trying to make light of the situation.  Such as a business deal that has gone bad.  I have also heard my informant use this expression humorously after we opened Christmas presents together.  He looked at all the discarded wrapping paper on the ground and exclaimed, “Les carrottes sont cuites!” 

The other expression mentioned, “la fin des haricots”, is interchangeable with the previous expression because both are referring to something that is over in a tragic way. This expression is fairly new in French language, as opposed to the pervious expression.  It refers to the idea that if you are eating the beans you are eating the last of your stored food. Thus, it’s all over!  I had never heard my informant use this expression perviously to the interview.

My informant was born to Hungarian immigrants in 1928 Paris, France.  He later immigrated to California in 1947, having spent much of War World II in hiding due to his Jewish heritage.  He holds multiple citizenships in both the United States and France.  He now lives in Manhattan Beach, California with his wife and has three children and five grandchildren.

French Saying

“La douleur t’apprend à prier.”

Translation: Pain teaches you to pray.   

 

The informant told me that her mother uses French sayings all of the time, but she rarely remembers them specifically. She said this one stuck out to her. She comes from a family that is not specifically religious. She said that the phrase isn’t necessarily for very religious people, but that it means that in times of pain you turn to prayer. According to my informant, the phrase means that pain humbles you. I think it is interesting that her mother uses this phrase and that she remembered it since she does not come from a religious family. It implies a connectedness, spirituality, and a human need to reach out for help that is really applicable to a lot of people, regardless of whether they have specific religious affiliations.