French: "Sont pris ceux qui croyaient prendre"English translation: It is a case of the biter bit 
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| GLOSSARY ENTRY (DERIVED FROM QUESTION BELOW) | | French term or phrase: | "Sont pris ceux qui croyaient prendre" | | English translation: | It is a case of the biter bit | | Entered by: | sodamnlogical |
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French to English translations [PRO]
Art/Literary - Idioms / Maxims / Sayings / bilingual teen novel | | French term or phrase: "Sont pris ceux qui croyaient prendre" | I can't think of any good English equivalent. Of course, it's figurative.
I welcome your suggestions!
TIA!
ps: let me know if you need context, feeling lazy right now... tired. |
| | Clarification request(s) and responseSara Noss: 7:32pm May 4, 2005: I know you are tired, but a bit of context will help, as ever. Hope you get a good rest soon. :) -
sodamnlogical (asker): 9:49pm May 4, 2005: context: - OK: so these teens thought all along that an old Monastery was inhabited by vampires (with capes and canes, and coffins). It turns out, just as they're about to turn on the light and look at the 'monster' they just knocked out, the lights come on, and their friends and family, laughing out loud, say "sont pris ceux qui croyaient prendre!". It was all a big joke for Halloween... HTH.
sodamnlogical (asker): 10:02pm May 4, 2005: BTW - I need an British expression... sorry, sorry, sorry! I know I should have said so sooner. I'm just... near the end of my tether!!
(it's a variant of 'tel est pris qui croyait prendre')
sodamnlogical (asker): 10:23pm May 4, 2005: the closest I could find was: 'He who laughs last laughs best' or 'He who laughs last laughs longest.'
But it's really the equivalent of 'rira bien qui rira le dernier' and doesn't quite convey the meaning of the original French sentence.
xxxsarahl: 10:34pm May 4, 2005: why don't you just forget about proverbs and find a nice punch line instead? -
sodamnlogical (asker): 10:38pm May 4, 2005: yeah. Maybe I'll do that, sarah. Thnx :-)
sodamnlogical (asker): 10:43pm May 4, 2005: although I do like Michel's answers...
Charlie Bavington: 11:34pm May 4, 2005: No need - there's an ideal UK English idiom for *exactly* this kind of situation.... -
sodamnlogical (asker): 12:43am May 5, 2005: Charlie: - I found the following about the answer you gave (which is great, by the way): be hoist(ed) with/by your own petard - FORMAL - to suffer harm from a plan by which you had intended to harm someone else.
Are you certain I could use it in this context, where no harm is done at all? I just want to make sure, since I've never heard that expression. Thanks a lot, and sorry for all the babble, you guys! ;-))
Michel Lévy: 6:40am May 5, 2005: I'm not an expert myself in English proverbs (as the folks here are) but I found another source confirming that the two answers I gave are 1) British proverbs 2) mean "tel est pris qui croyait prendre"... que demande le peuple et pourquoi chercher 12 à 14 -
Charlie Bavington: 8:26am May 5, 2005: I wouldn't say "hoist..." is formal, but it's not particularly colloquial. There is also the issue that the past tense ought to be "hoist" but usage is tending to "hoisted" by association with the verb meaning to lift. Doesn't have to be actual harm. -
Charlie Bavington: 8:28am May 5, 2005: Michel's "biter bit" also shows an interesting linguistic point, given the target for your book. And it is also a pretty common expression over here. -
sodamnlogical (asker): 8:19pm May 5, 2005: thank you, everyone! it was a tough choice, but I think Michel's answer (the biter bit) will be perfect for this.
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| | Selected response from:
 Michel Lévy
Canada
| Note from asker to answererI like the 'biter' bit...:-)
merci bien Michel! I'll have to buy that dictionary of yours...
4 KudoZ points were awarded for this answer |
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1 hr confidence:  peer agreement (net): +1 |
| sont pris ceux qui croyaient prendre the hunter become the hunted
Explanation:
What else?
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The translation workplace 
peer agreement (net): +2
