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Sunday, February 1, 2015

French words - in our bureau by the portmanteau, we made our rapprochement

The Sunday Times, the British version, is still a great source of word from French, Greek, Latin and worldwide sources. One can sit debating the correct translation, before checking up on various websites translating. We decided Google translate was best.



We started translating the ingredients of humous.
Ingredients are usually easy. Everybody knows petits lois are peas.

Baffling - h u i l e  d e  C o l z a
We recognize the word guile as oil. No not guile, dear spell checker, h u i l e ! oil of what?

eventually we find a translation, rape seed oilAt first we were baffled by 50 % m o i n s  d e gras  (I had to separate the letter to stop spellchecker grabbing this word and changing it). Did it mean less than 50 per cent fat, or at least fifty per cent fat?
After several attempts to translate, we found the English elsewhere on the packet. It meant something which sounds just as odd in English as in French. Fifty per cent less.

per cent - two words, one word - another battle with the spell checker and another English word which sound like it might be of French origin

Here are a few French words I found today. I have not counted Cirque du Soleil - circle or circus of sun, the name or brand name of a circus without animals, great acrobats and music, avante grade - another set of French words. De is of. Du is of the masculine, whilst the French feminine form would be de la. Le soleil. Du soleil. The sun, masculine, of the sun.

bureau - a wooden chest of drawers, a desk, but also an office, especially one which welcomes enquiries and puts people in touch with services, as in bureau de tourism - I keep adding an e at the end of this word but spell checker keeps removing the last letter.

portmanteau - briefcase? old fashioned dresser? real and metaphor.

rapprochement - reconciliation.

Finally, mon Dieu - my god.
But c'est la vie. That's life.

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