bête comme chou
this little phrase means ‘really easy‘ or ‘easy peasy’ in English.
A literal translation, however, suggests that the French are actually saying ‘stupid like a cabbage’, a collection of words that is not all that silly when you consider English phrases along the lines of having a pea for a brain. something that is ‘bête comme chou’ is, therefore, so easy that even a stupid person could do it.
French website expressio states that this phrase dates back to the middle of the 19th century where ‘le chou’ didn’t just mean cabbage. It could also mean head as well as bottom (the one you sit on). At the time an intelligence that was considerably less than average what attributed to the posterior, rather than the cranium. We are therefore lead to believe that if a person who is ‘bête comme chou’ (in the old sense of the phrase) can acheive something, then it must be very easy to do.
Faire chou blanc
To draw a blank.
The literal translation for this phrase reveals quite a cabbage-y theme for this particular set of vocabulary: ‘to make a white cabbage’
However expressio traces the phrase back to the 16th century, where a game of skittles played with no points scored was called a ‘coup blanc’, where ‘coup’ was pronounced ‘choup’ in the berrichon dialect….so maybe it doesn’t have all that much to do with cabbages after all…
Donner sa langue au chat
To give in.
Literally, ‘to give one’s tongue to the cat’. In English, of course, cats and tongues would be more associated with the, mostly rhetorical, question ‘cat got your tongue?’ suggesting that the askee is speechless.
The origin of the French, however is from the 19th century, before which the phrase ‘jeter sa langue aux chiens’ (to throw one’s tongue to the dogs) was used. The phrase was changed because we throw to scraps to dogs, things that have no value, which seemed inappropriate to the meaning of the phrase. What is more, cats were associated at the time with keeping secrets, being unable to divulge them. At the very least the phrase comes about from a desire to soften the impact of ‘jeter sa langue au chien’, by replacing ‘jeter’ with ‘donner’ and replacing the dog with a less ferocious animal.
Avoir un chat dans la gorge
To have a frog in one’s throat.
The only word to have got altered in translation here is the name of the animal. In France the saying is ‘to have a cat in one’s throat’. The interchangeability of nouns in such a way is not specific to the French language. I recently read in Mona Baker’s textbook on translation In Other Words that the it rains old ladies and sticks in Wales, where we get cats and dogs.
Il n’y a pas un chat
The place is deserted.
Tis literally translates as: ‘There is not a cat/There is not a single cat’. Is anyone else starting to notice a proverbial cat obsession?
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