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"French Kiss": The French finally have a word for it

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Jean-Gabriel Piette
Jean-Gabriel Piette  Identity Verified
Canada
English to French
+ ...
oulah May 30, 2013

On va donc pouvoir s'embrasser a grands coups de galoche? Ça risque de faire mal, non?
 
Neil Coffey
Neil Coffey  Identity Verified
United Kingdom
Local time: 15:18
French to English
+ ...
Why oh why oh why oh why... May 31, 2013

When I saw this article, what immediately sprang to mind is: why do journalists take the phrase "Académie française" as some kind licence to print gibberish?

It's hard to work out what the actual piece of "news" is that's being reported here, but multiple statements presented on the way are utterly, demonstrably false.

The statement that no dictionary has included a slang expression for "French kiss" is particularly bemusing given that she cites herself several slang ... See more
When I saw this article, what immediately sprang to mind is: why do journalists take the phrase "Académie française" as some kind licence to print gibberish?

It's hard to work out what the actual piece of "news" is that's being reported here, but multiple statements presented on the way are utterly, demonstrably false.

The statement that no dictionary has included a slang expression for "French kiss" is particularly bemusing given that she cites herself several slang expressions which have existed since at least the 1960s. So the proposition would be that in the last 50 years, no dictionary compiler in the universe has thought to include that expression... (Quite from the fact that if you pick pretty much any reasonably-sized French dictionary off the shelf, you'll probably find these expressions are included...)

I'm always perplexed too why people have this perception that the "unofficiual" dictionary is somehow the black sheep, as though there was actually some legal body authorising the publication of all dictionaries. ▲ Collapse
 
neilmac
neilmac
Spain
Local time: 16:18
Spanish to English
+ ...
MT - (My Translation) May 31, 2013

So maybe we should translate it as "clogging" (cf: "snogging")...?

Oxford Superlex/Hachette:
galoche / galOS / nom féminin (sabot, godillot) clog; menton en galoche protruding chin.

[Edited at 2013-05-31 07:04 GMT]
 
Arianne Farah
Arianne Farah  Identity Verified
Canada
Local time: 10:18
Member (2008)
English to French
French canadian has 'frencher' May 31, 2013

'Frencher' or 'se frencher' - to give a deep kiss while inserting ones tongue into the partner's mouth.

A 'galoche' is slang for cheap/old shoes... lol.
 
Sylvano
Sylvano
Local time: 16:18
English to French
Dictionaries are often far from the real world May 31, 2013

We have "se rouler une pelle/un patin" and have used it for ages... And I doubt French youngsters have ever used "se galocher". It sounds like the 30's or 40's.
 
Helga Lemiere
Helga Lemiere  Identity Verified
France
Local time: 16:18
German to French
We also use May 31, 2013

baiser langoureux..."rouler une pelle" sounds quite technically !
 
Neil Coffey
Neil Coffey  Identity Verified
United Kingdom
Local time: 15:18
French to English
+ ...
Good dictionaries don't *try* to be from the real world... May 31, 2013

Sylvano wrote:
We have "se rouler une pelle/un patin" and have used it for ages... And I doubt French youngsters have ever used "se galocher". It sounds like the 30's or 40's.


What's more, "se rouler une pelle etc" has been in dictionaries for ages.

It's true that the Academy's dictionary is far from the real world-- it's essentially compiled by a "dictionary committee" of three octogenarians who meet one afternoon every two weeks. Even if their intention was to descriptively document the language as accurately as possible (rather than document how they *wish* the language was...), it would take them something at least in the order of centuries to complete the task. Not even the "immortels" will live quite that long, and in any case they'll essentially just be chasing their tail.

But... other good dictionaries aren't like that. They're compiled by a larger group of linguists with access to modern databases and resources. Even if a word was only coined recently, there's nothing in principal to stop if being included if it meets the dictionary editors' inclusion criteria.

This journalist paints a picture of what they see as "non-official" dictionaries being somehow inferior, but linguistically speaking, the reasons for taking that view are really far from clear.

[Edited at 2013-05-31 13:48 GMT]
 


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"French Kiss": The French finally have a word for it







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