Amuse-Bouche: Explaining French to Americans

This is the first of a series of "Amuse Bouche"-- humorous mouthfuls on the perplexities of French language and behavior by a former New Yorker now living in France. They are posted here, to amuse you, or for you to use freely as you like, so long as you respect my copyright. They've even been used to provoke discussion in courses for French speakers learning English!


Amuse-Bouche No. 1: What’s in a Name?
by Julia Frey
julia.frey@aya.yale.edu


Naming your baby in France gets easier and riskier...


I had to ask France Aimée where she got a patriotic name like "Beloved France". (What if my parents had named me "Beloved United States"?) Not patriotism, she said. Her mother is Aimée; her grandmother was named France. Well, I observed, her grandmother was born in 1915. Another friend was named France during the German occupation in 1940. France Aimée’s name, she admitted, can provoke misunderstandings. Backpacking through Asia, she was paged at Jakarta airport: red carpet, flashing cameras, formal cocktail. It seems her Indonesian friend in Paris, to introduce her to someone local, had sent a telegram in English to a government official he knew, asking him to welcome “Miss France Aimée X.” Very excited, the office had quickly set up a reception for...Miss France!

In 1964, when Gilbert Bécaud’s song “Nathalie” was a hit, some 32,000 baby girls were named Nathalie. This year, 40. In 1964, the most popular name for boys was Philippe. It ranks fifth overall for the past century. It lost favor just after World War II because the head of the Vichy régime was named Philippe Pétain, only to be salvaged in 1947, when Elizabeth II of England married Prince Philip. The truly class-conscious seek archaic names like Humbert or Isabeau. Or their Breton roots yield Baudouin or Guénaele. As in the United States, someone with a truly weird, unpronounceable name is usually from an old family—the kind that would do that to an innocent newborn.

A law passed on 11 germinal an XI (April Fool’s Day, 1803) said you had to choose a name from an official list which no one seems to be able to locate anymore. Legal names included all saints with birthdays in the calendrier grégorien (paradoxical since France was using the calendrier révolutionnaire at the time) plus certain historic figures, which ones I can only guess: Cleopatra? Nero? If you wanted to call your kid Friday, tough luck.

Desperate for individuation, people developed nicknames. As Boris Vian’s 1955 song “Je Suis Snob” explains, “Je m’appelle Patrick, mais on dit Bob.” Additionally, la bonne bourgeoisie hatched a flock of hyphenations: Jean-Paul, Jean-Pierre, Jean-Claude for boys; Marie-Paule, Marie-Pierre, Marie-Claude for girls. These even showed seasonal variations. Marie-Noëlle explains hers: “I was born in October, a bit too soon after my parent’s March wedding. My name hints at a Christmas birthday.” A 1966 law, bowing to these faits accomplis, also allowed mythological names (Medusa?) and regional names. Aude is poetic, but Aisne? Unfortunate homonyms for that French département (pronounced N) include aine (groin) and haine (hatred).

After a 1981 amnesty granting illegal immigrants citizenship, it wasn’t politiquement correct to force a saint’s name on a baby beur (French-born person of North African descent). Informally, parents could choose an alternative. Result: 1,784 boys named Mohamed.

But a name that might subject the child to ridicule risked a government veto. Results were inconsistent. Some bureaucrats rejected Marine: too nautical. For others, no problem. Since 1993, all rules are off. Last year Océane was really big.

So now you're safe -- you can name your kid anything you want. Unless some civil servant questions your taste in names. Then the “judge of family affairs” will choose a more appropriate one (Tuesday?). This creates new problems for psychologists. “What will happen to the child named Périphérique Nord, after the highway where his mother’s waters broke?” wonders François Bonifaix (Le Traumatisme du Prénom, 1995). Luckily, anyone over the age of 13 can legally change his or her name. Maybe I’ll change mine to Beloved United States.


© Julia Frey 2011

p.s. Many of these columns were originally published, beginning in 2006, in the magazine France Today. 

Amuse Bouche No. 2: What's in a name? (bis) -- Le Name Dropping

by Julia Frey
Even as they dump conventional first names (see Amuse-bouche No. 1), the French remain obsessed with le nom de famille

Camille’s  bobo (bourgeois-bohème) parents never got around to getting married. Déclarée (legally recognized) by her father, she bears his surname (not surnom -- which means nickname). But seventeen, and status-conscious, Camille wanted the ultimate snobisme, a two-part name. Her mother’s nom de famille includes the preposition de (known as the particule). World-wide, les snobs are impressed by la particule. French snobs even distinguish between noblesse d'Empire, whose titles merely were bestowed by Napoleon, and ancien Régime nobles who somehow survived the Révolution. So Camille combined both her parents’ last names (which I have changed to protect the guilty). She’s now dite (called) Camille Bidule de Machin-Chouette (Thingamajig of Whatsherface). Not everyone is impressed. Bobos and hoi polloi treat double names like clumsy furniture: un nom à tiroir (a name with a drawer in it), à rallonge (with a table extension), à charnière (with a hinge), or qui se devisse (which can be unscrewed). She can always unscrew -- It’s just a nom d’usage. Legally she’s still Camille Bidule.

Although it’s considered vulgar to ask what you do for a living, in France people want to know your family tree before they decide if they like you. In some circles, being just plain folks ( petites gens - mysteriously feminine in this context) or du peuple (proletarian) is a source of pride. It’s particularly chic to say you come from paysans (peasants) or ouvriers, (workers) if you’re really an intellectuel/le.

Certain women will marry a man who is cruel, stupid, unethical and unemployed just for his aristocratic name. Rich American families like the Vanderbilts used to purchase titles for their daughters by marrying them to impoverished nobles. Less well-heeled social climbers, like Honoré de Balzac’s father, just slipped in  la particule when they thought nobody was looking.

These days, you can’t casually adopt a new  nom de famille. Too bad if you’re stuck with a moniker like Marc Deposay (homonym: marque déposée -- trademark) , not to mention Poubelle (garbage can) or Guillotine, both named for their inventors. Luckily the death penalty has been abolished, and poubelles are no longer allowed in the streets for fear of terrorist bombs. All you find when you look for a place to park your gum is a lidded metal hoop with a green plastic bag attached.

Don’t think marriage can save a French woman from an unfortunate name. Her identity papers bear her maiden name all her life, adding the name of her husband along with details of her marital status. Thus Aude Wessel (homonym:  eau de vaisselle -- dishwater), when she marries, becomes Aude Wessel épouse (wife of) Fosse (drainage ditch). If the marriage dissolves, she is Aude Wessel divorcée Fosse, or if he kicks the bucket, she’s Aude Wessel veuve Fosse. If she remarries, she’s still Aude Wessel, now épouse Bidet.

You may envy  les people (pronounce: laypeePOLE) -- the folks you see in les médias, but a famous name is also a mixed blessing. Sara was once married to Pablo Picasso’s son Claude. “It was astonishing,” she said. “From the moment I became Sara Picasso, I ceased to exist. People only cared about my name.“ (Picasso himself complained people bought his paintings for the signature.) She was very young. The marriage didn’t last. Sara existed again. The name is still worth money. In 1998, Claude sold the signature to the French auto maker Citroën, and named their mid-sized model the “Xsara Picasso”. Sara assumes he named the car after her: ex-Sara Picasso!

©Julia Frey 2011

P.S. Julia Frey (pronounced: fry), an ex-French professor, was amused to discover her students called her “French Frey”.

Amuse-Bouche No. 3: Twelve Ways to Toss a Salad

by Julia Frey

From oysters to eggplants, French is stuffed with food metaphors...

The other night at dinner, Philippe was discussing food. Not surprising. After all, France is a country with four religions and 400 sauces. (The United States, Philippe opines, has four sauces and 400 religions.) Specifically, the pervasiveness of food imagery in French speech. I recounted confronting my first major food metaphor. “T’as les portuguaises ensablées, ou quoi ? ” a fellow student said. Clueless, I attempted direct translation (Are your female Portuguese full of sand or what?), then intelligently responded, “Quoi ? ”

He explained elaborately. Roman policier (detective novel) writer Frédéric Dard, who single-handedly souped up French with more argot than anyone before or since, was a big foodie. Not surprising. Dard, who wrote under the pseudonym San-Antonio, liked to cook up ambiguously edible titles for his books, like Tarte à la Crème Story (1980), Sauce Tomate sur Canapé (1994) and the inimitable La Rate au Court-bouillon (approximately, “Spleen in the Soup,” 1965). Another one, Du Poulet au Menu(1958), sounds like KFC until you know that poulet (chicken) also means cop.

In Ne Mangez Pas la Consigne (“Don’t Eat the Orders,” or alternatively, “Don’t Eat the Baggage Room,” 1961), San-Antonio invented the notorious phrase about the Portuguese. Which are not Portuguese women but edible oysters known as portuguaises and, by extension, human ears. How come? Because ears reminded him of oyster shells. Why full of sand? Because a dead oyster is full of sand. Also, if you’ve got sand in your ears, you can’t hear anything. “T’as les portuguaises ensablées, ou quoi ? ” means “Are you deaf or what?” These days, there’s a rock group named Les Portuguaises Ensablées, and the Dictionnaire Grand Robert lists “portuguaises” as a synonym for ears!

But not all food metaphors in French are complicated. Some are obvious. My favorite is pédaler dans le yaourt / la choucroute / la semoule, as in “ You must get organized. Stop pedaling in (choose one) yogurt / sauerkraut / polenta.” Not to be confused with “Il patauge dans la mélasse” (He’s paddling in molasses), roughly translatable as “He’s in deep doo-doo.”

As we turned to our salad, Philippe remarked that there are 12 ways to toss salad in French, including tourner (turn), touiller (stir) and fatiguer (to fatigue, exhaust or worry, as a dog worries a bone). There’s also remuer, mélanger, saucer, secouer, assaisonner, accommoder, apprêter, relever and I forget. The word salade itself has at least six meanings meanings outside its culinary context. In San-Antonio’s La Vérité en Salade (“The Truth as a Salad” 1958), it is a veritable layer-cake of innuendo:
—Confusion, disorder: Il a fait une salade indescriptible (He messed everything up). See also, Quelle mélasse !
—Lies: Arrête tes salades ! (Stop lying!), but in the singular: Arrête ta salade ! (Stop whining!).
—Making a big deal out of nothing: Elle en a fait toute une salade (She made a big stink about it).
—Quarrel, as in Il me cherche une salade: He’s trying to pick a fight with me. Short form: Il me cherche.
—Unclear or dishonest situation, as in Quelle salade que la politique ! (Politics is a dirty business).
Later, when the detective caught his man, the poulets carted him off in a panier à salade (paddy-wagon) !

We ran into one last food metaphor that night. Standing by Philippe’s car was a woman, writing. Une aubergine lui collait un papillon (an eggplant was gluing a butterfly on him). Quoi ? A meter maid was giving him a ticket! Back in 1977-78, the Paris police department decided those ladies who leave parking tickets fluttering (hence papillon) under your windshield wipers should wear fashionable maroon uniforms with high, rounded caps. Within minutes, someone nicknamed them aubergines. The maligned uniforms have since been replaced with blue suits, but the name stuck. You guessed it: the Robert now lists “aubergine” as “auxiliaire de la police française” !

© Julia Frey, 2009

Julia Frey is a writer best known for her biography of an artist who also loved to cook: Toulouse-Lautrec, a Life (Phoenix Giants, London, 2006, available on Amazon.com).

Tags:  San-Antonio, culture, Frédéric Dard, food, France, French,  language, literature