#french argot

[culturefrancaise]

35 French Gay Slang Words You Need to Know - Talk in French

[coquelicoq]

les misérables:

Cela même lui avait été plus facile qu'à Roméo; Roméo était obligé d'escalader un mur, Marius n'eut qu'à forcer un peu un des barreaux de la grille décrépite qui vacillait dans son alvéole rouillé, à la manière des dents des vieilles gens. (IV, 8, I, p. 341)

me: that's weird, isn't gens masculine? guess i'll look it up on wordreference in case it's also a feminine noun meaning something different.

wordreference:

Inflections of 'gens' (nmpl): pl: gens Toujours au pluriel quand gens = les hommes en général ou un nombre indéterminé de personnes. L'adjectif qui précède s'accorde souvent au féminin.

me: what the

frick frack

[billetcognitif]

Zahma

Fini la zone en chien au parc À poireauter après Hélène ; Les schmitts ont chourrav nos sirènes, On taxe une nuigrav aux narcs.

Sûr, j’ai d’autres plans à mon arc Pour mes cravings au kérosène : De la rouille en drep brésilienne Amazonée express du dark.

La salle de shoot ? C’est walou, Mais j’irai guédra les modoux Si j’ai le S qui vient khalasse.

Quand j’ai gobé sec deux paras De sken, je refonds dans la masse, À ramper dans la course aux rats.

[if-you-fan-a-fire]

"Automobile thieves are closely allied with bandits, and the lingoes of the two are closely interwoven. Many of the terms have ancient origins, but later usage has given them special, and often different, significances. Laying out the route of escape before consummating a robbery comes under casing. Yet to case also covers the preliminary work of watching the employees of a bank (or other mark.) Following a pay-roll, watching a jewelry store, tailing (not trailing, so often used erroneously) a jewelry salesman, or a mail-truck-all these activities come under the heading of casing. "Give it a case." "Has it been cased?" "Casing a mark without getting a rank" is the most difficult part of a robbery. Rooting implies that several men are going out on robbery bent. "Come on! Let's root against that jug to-day." "Larry got shot rooting single- handed." Root belongs to the old yeggs, but during the war there was very little rough stealing in this country, and the term fell into disuse. Then along about 1919 or 1920 it started to come back, but as the property of the young bandits who first stole automobiles, and then rooted on some bank, pay-roll, or mail-truck.

To gat-up means to hold up a person or place with a gun. Gat indicates a revolver or rod as distinguished from a long rod, a rifle. Its origin comes from this: Many cats once worked in the harvest fields of the Middle West. Cats are itinerant workers, the fringe of the hobo, bum, and yegg outfits, who beat their way on freight-trains. Traveling from the fields after the harvest, many of them often crowded into one box-car. Into this car came men intent on harvesting the harvesters. With drawn guns these men, usually two in number, would force the cats to surrender their earnings and then order them to leave the car by leaping from the side door. "There wuz cats strung out for a mile along that drag." The term catting up was applied to this pastime by the profession. Those employed in it were known as cat-up men. Soon cat was corrupted to gat. The latter has been derived, by some authorities, from

Gatling (gun), but probably erroneously. Rap is very prevalent. A rap used to be a definite charge placed against a man. The man might be either in jail or hunted as a fugitive. "Naw, he can't show-up around Minnie [Minneapolis] on account of that jug rap he's wanted for." A rapper was the main witness against a man. "If we could only pull the rapper off, then they wouldn't have no beef against him." But lately rap means any sort of betrayal or indiscretion. "Aw don't rap to that guy; he's wrong." "Why, I been rapping to him for years -I didn't know he's turned queer!" Rap and tumble are to-day synonyms: "I rapped to him and he didn't give me a tumble." Formerly tumble was akin to fall, to get a "jolt in the stir."

But for brevity and terseness I believe the following is worthy of a high award. The prison chaplain had inquired of a burglar the cause of his predicament. The answer is a prison classic: "I was prowling a private, an' I got a rumble and a rank, zowie! I'm ditched for fifteen flat, an' on a bum beef!" A bum beef, in the patois of the profes- sion, means that the gentleman was innocent.

- Ernest Booth, "The Language of the Underworld," in Joseph Lewis French, ed., Gray Shadows. New York: The Century Co., 1931. p. 164-166

[irishgop]

Julliette Binoche

[lauve-french]

Quelques abréviations en français 👇🏻💬 🔹Bonjour = Bjr (Hello 🇬🇧) 🔸Toujours = Tjs (Always 🇬🇧) 🔹T'inquiète = Tqt / tkt (Don't worry 🇬🇧) 🔸Merci = Mrc (Thank you 🇬🇧) 🔹De rien = Dr (You're welcome 🇬🇧) 🔸Je t'aime = Jtm (I love you 🇬🇧) 🔹Beaucoup = Bcp (A lot 🇬🇧) 🔸Vrm = Vraiment (Really 🇬🇧) 🔹️D'accord = D'acc (Alright 🇬🇧)

[rocketrouquine]

Has anyone pointed out that Sam is definitely DeadMau5, not just because of the helmet or the « dead » in the name but because, well : Maus in « verlan » ( a type of French argot which switches letters or syllabus around to create new words) is Sam.

It’s literally DeadSam.

[sgiandubh]

Anon rebelde.

Me voy a meter en un jardín pero creo que la mala hierba de cierto blog dedicado a un sujeto que quiere, necesita y ansía ser anónimo así que no se que misión tiene en si ese blog, está alcanzando tamaño como para darle un repaso y dejarla en su tamaño de ego preciso. Las nuevas/viejas fotos de GETTY han sido una novedad para el fandom, fotos recogidas en distintas plataformas y publicadas en ellas a razón del sesgo de cada cuenta, y si, esas fotos no aparecian en los antiguos post del portal a la que alude como si fuera la biblia de GETTY así que no me sirve esa triste excusa de actualizaciones de fotos, son fotos nunca antes publicadas como la UNICA que ella publicó porque esa si que se ajustaba, con calzador eso si, a su narrativa. Entonces una si y otras no ? Señora de las iniciales en mayúsculas, como las rubias de Sam, sea mas coherente con sus excusas de mal pagador que no hay ser más patético que el que no sabe retroceder o por lo menos guardar silencio ante un muro de realidad porque si no corre el riesgo de que, hasta su media docena de notas, se avergüencen de su idiotez.

Dear (returning) Anon Rebelde,

Disculpe esta publicación tan retrasada (48 horas) de su excelente envío. Como bien sabes, estos dos últimos días fueron bastante intensos. No voy a añadir más comentarios sobre lo que tan elocuentemente escribiste. No fue fácil de traducir, pero me faltaba ese argot madrileño (Alguien y yo preferimos hablar en francés, solo porque somos 2 pijos muy, muy #tontos). Y por mucho que me gustaría dejar de lado este maldito tema, también soy de la opinión de que se debería animar a la gente a expresarse. Así que aquí va la traducción, para que la disfruten todas nuestras amigas./Please excuse this very much delayed posting (48 hours) of your excellent submission. As you well know, these last two days were pretty intense. I am not going to add any more comments to what you so eloquently wrote. It was not easy to translate, but I was missing that Madrid slang (Someone and I prefer to talk in French, just because we are 2 #silly pijos). And much as I would like to put this damn topic to rest, I am also of the opinion that people should be encouraged to express themselves. So here goes the translation, for all our friends to enjoy:

'I will probably overanalyze again, but I think the weeds of a certain blog, dedicated to somebody who wants, needs and craves anonymity (and I do fail to see what could be the main objective of such a blog), have reached that size when they need to be cleaned up and that ego trimmed to reasonable proportions. The new/old GETTY photos have been a novelty for the fandom. They have spread on other platforms, too, where people shared them based on the agenda of each account. And yes, those photos did not appear in the old posts of that webpage to which she alludes as if it were the GETTY Bible, so that sad excuse of photo updates doesn't work for me. These are never before seen photos, and so is the ONLY one that she published, just because she did manage to shoehorn it into her own narrative.

So that photo is ok, but not the other ones? Hey, Block Letters Lady (just like Sam's blondes), you should really bring more than lame excuses to the table, because there's nothing more pathetic than someone who doesn't know how to push back or at least remain silent, when confronted with reality. If you don't, you risk to make even that half dozen likes you get for your posts feel ashamed, because of your stupidity.'

Bangkok Traffic Scene. Taken by me, April 2009.

[black-rabbit-razumikhin]

Raz Reads Les Mis (XXIX)

Saint Denis - Argot

Thank you so much to @fremedon for the correction! Thankfully, while tiny Gavroche is still starving and still deserves a nice warm meal, he did buy more than 5cm of bread in the previous chapter.

I think Hugo heard me being confused about the language of Patron Minette

I had to laugh, being confused about what dialect they were speaking, turning the page, and being met with a full chapter about it

Argot is, as well as that spoken by Patron Minette, the language of misery

But it's spoken by everyone in some capacity, under different contexts

You need language to bring light, words for misery to illuminate and pull away the darkness

So while argot has bad connotations, it's still necessary

Hugo goes on another bit of exposition about society

1789 was a breath of fresh air

"The French Revolution, which is nothing more nor less than the ideal armed with the sword, started to its feet, and by the very movement, closed the door of evil and opened the door of good."

This!! How does he write like that??

Needless to say, this is another little intermission chapter that I greatly enjoyed. I'll place more trust in Hugo that he knows exactly what's going on and I'll get the information I need in due time.

[gavroche-le-moineau]

La mort de Gavroche / Gavroche’s death

Oh it's here, the chapter that breaks my heart to pieces every time. If you haven't heard it before I highly encourage listening to the Original French Concept Album version of Gavroche's death. In my opinion, it is by far the saddest and most impactful version. Below you'll find my translation of the lyrics with annotations. The PDF can be found here: La Mort de Gavroche translation

Gavroche Cette fois, Javert, t’arrêteras plus personne La mort t’a coffré à perpétuité J’espère qu’là-haut, on s’ra pas dans l’même cachot Sur terre déjà, on n’était pas du même combat¹

Gavroche This time, Javert, you’ll no longer be arresting anyone Death has locked you up for good I hope up there, we won’t be in the same dungeon On earth already, we weren’t in the same fight¹

NOTES 1. “du même combat” literally means “of the same fight” but I believe this is using “même combat!” which is an expression of solidarity meaning “we’re on the same side.” I kept the translation in the lyrics more literal since “to be in the same fight” in English can also convey the idea of solidarity.

Courfeyrac Sacré Gavroche, t’as toujours l’mot pour rire² C’est pas la parlotte³ qui te f’ra guérir Marius Ah les salauds, ils ont tiré sur un enfant Ils ont, sans savoir, abattu le printemps Quel dieu cruel s’abreuve du sang des innocents Et combien faudra-t-il pleurer d’combattants?

Courfeyrac Blasted Gavroche, you always have something funny to say² It’s not the gift of the gab³ that will heal you Marius Ah the bastards, they’ve shot at a kid They have, without knowing, shot down spring What cruel god drinks the blood of innocents And how many fighters will we have to cry over?

NOTES 2. “avoir le mot pour rire” is an expression that literally means “always have the word for laughing / a laugh” and is translated as “to make jokes, be funny.”

3. “la parlotte” means “chitchat, chatter, chinwag, talking shop, etc.” I decided to translate it as “the gift of the gab” because that felt like a more appropriate term given the previous line which implies that Gavroche is good at always making jokes.

Gavroche Notre drapeau était par terre Rouge de honte et bleu sali Moi, j’ai bondi blanc⁴ de colère “Allons, enfants de la patrie”⁵

Gavroche Our flag was on the ground Red with shame and dirtied blue Me, I leapt up, white⁴ with anger “Allons, enfants de la patrie”⁵

NOTES 4. “Rouge de honte … blanc de colère” This sequence uses expressions that incorporate the colors of the French flag (blue, white, red). “Rouge de honte” means “red with shame,” as in “blushing with shame” or a “flush of shame” but can also simply be translated as “ashamed.” I haven’t been able to figure out if “bleu sali” is an expression or is simply referring to the dirtied blue of the flag on the ground. “Blanc de colère” is, as in English, “white with anger.”

5. “Allons, enfants de la patrie!” is a reference to the first line of the Marseillaise, the national anthem of France. It means “Let’s go, children of the fatherland/motherland!”

Un mec m’a vu, qui m’a crié : “Qui vive!”⁶ J’ai dit : "Révolution française" Ça lui a pas plu ma franchise M’a mis un pruneau⁷ dans la fraise⁸ C’est comme ça, on gagne pas à chaque fois

A guy saw me, shouted at me “Who lives?”⁶ I said : “The French revolution” That didn’t please him, my frankness, Put a slug⁷ in my face⁸ It’s like that, you don’t win every time

NOTES 6. “Qui vive!” is an expression that literally means “who lives?” but is translated as “who goes there?” Just like the English expression, it has same the context of someone on watch or in a military environment asking an unknown person to identify themselves. However, I chose to keep the literal translation in the lyrics because it ties the pun in the response together. The response is “Révolution française (the French Revolution),” because a common refrain is “Vive la revolution française!” literally, “Live the French revolution!”

7. “pruneau” is argot (slang). The word “pruneau” means “prune” but it was used as slang for a bullet.

8. “fraise” is another argot word. This time the word for “strawberry” means “face / mug.”

Donnez, donnez⁹, ma casquette aux copains C’est tout c’que j’ai et j’en n’ai plus besoin Je suis tombé par terre, C’est la faute à Voltaire¹⁰ Le nez dans le ruisseau, C’est la faute à...

Give, give⁹, my cap to my friends It’s all I have, and I don’t need it anymore I fell to the ground It’s the fault of Voltaire¹⁰ Nose in the gutter, It’s the fault of…

NOTES 9. “Donnez, donnez” is a callback to the refrain used in Gavroche’s introductory song on the Original Concept Album (the equivalent of Look Down).

10. “C’est la faute à Voltaire” – I would have preferred to translate these lines as “It’s Voltaire’s/Rousseau’s fault” but I kept the French wording of “It’s the fault of Voltaire/Rousseau” so that the final line cuts off in the same manner.

As usual, corrections and commentaries are welcome!

[cliozaur]

- There’re new facets of Éponine revealed in this chapter. Also, Thénardier is back, and he irritates me even more than usual. There is so much going on here that I don’t know where to start!

- Probably, Éponine was the last person Patron-Minette expected to meet at the Rue Plumet. But I think it was not a coincidence that she was on watch near the house. We don’t know for sure, but probably she somehow learned about the planned raid. It was the first time she followed Marius to the house (because, unlike him, she does not stalk people), and what a coincidence! It was the night of the raid! Although, with Hugo, you never know, maybe it was a coincidence after all.

- When she said, “There is a dog,” the first thing I thought was that she is talking about herself, and it turned out that I was right! Her monologue about being a daughter of a wolf, but at the same time being a dog herself, is absolutely stunning! (We already know about one “dog son of a wolf” in the Brick.) Well, after some thinking, I am not surprised that Hugo makes such a big deal out of comparing criminals to wolves. After all, even in the nineteenth century, wolves were part of French people’s day-to-day horrors and nightmares. (I will write more about it when I have time.) She is full of determination to become a “dog”—she even stopped using argot. In the same monologue, Éponine once again mentions her suicidal tendencies: she is extremely brave in this situation only because she is not afraid of dying; in fact, she wants to die, as we already know. And the way she declares: “There are six of you; I represent the whole world,” is a sign that the ideals of the barricade boys are not so foreign to her. Some descriptions related to her physical state are again heartbreaking: she is coughing her lungs out (reminding me of Fantine before her death). and this depiction of her hands “small, bony, and feeble as that of a skeleton” brings tears to my eyes!

- Patron-Minette also deserves some discussion. (Just look at them in the illustration below—aren’t they amazing?! What is it that Brujon holds in his hands? It looks like a huge screwdriver!) It’s so curious that none of the original quartet behaves as a leader here. At the beginning, it was Thénardier who led the group and insisted on breaking into the house, despite Éponine’s threats, and at the end it was Brujon who had the last, decisive word. I really like how the personality of each of them shines through their interaction with Éponine. The fucking Thénardier once again did not recognize his child and then was extremely rude to her¬. However, closer to the end of the chapter, he tried to manipulate her (as he used to do in the past), saying that the robbery would provide them with the means to exist, but this time, he did not find any sympathy in Éponine.

- Montparnasse is also extremely rude and ready to use violence against her—to grab and hold her, and even to cut her throat. (I think that there is a big chance that this is how their relations could have ended if they had continued them.) But Babet is surprisingly pacifistic: “I don’t hit a lady.”

- At the very end, they are retiring to the sewers! It’s so intriguing: “‘Where shall we go to sleep to-night?’/ ‘Under Pantin [Paris].’ / ‘Have you the key to the gate, Thénardier?’”

[rosesutherlandwrites]

All right my les mis friends: if I wanted to look for other sources to learn about French argot in the late 18th/early 19th C beyond what our boy Vicky Hugo has to say about it, does anyone have any ideas of where I should start looking? 

[lafcadiosadventures]

« (...) c’était dans un certain hiver où quelques artistes et poëtes s’étaient mis à parodier les soupers et les nuits de la Régence. On avait la prétention de s’enivrer au cabaret ; on était raffiné, truand et talon rouge tout à la fois. Et ce qu’il y avait de plus réel dans cette réaction vers les vieilles mœurs de la jeunesse française, c’était, non le talon rouge, mais le cabaret et l’orgie ; c’était le vin de la barrière bu dans des crânes en chantant la ronde de Lucrèce Borgia ; au total, peu de filles enlevées, moins encore de bourgeois battus ; et, quant au guet, formulé par des gardes municipaux et des sergents de ville, loin de se laisser charger de coups de bâton et de coups d’épée, il comprenait assez mal la couleur d’une époque illustre, pour mettre parfois les soupeurs au violon, en qualité de simples tapageurs nocturnes. »

Gérard de Nerval, Mes prisons

[burtlancster]

Burt Lancaster by Sydney Pollack — for Double Exposure: Take Two compiled and photographed by Roddy McDowall

In 1960 I was what used to be called a dialogue coach on a film entitled The Young Savages, directed by John Frankenheimer. I was twenty-six years old, had never been to Hollywood, and was scared as hell about being on a movie set. The film starred Burt Lancaster, one of the handful of motion picture superstars in the world. I walked on the set the first day (trying to be as inconspicuous as possible) and gathered together the three young actors who were to be my charges, in order to whisper a few last-minute suggestions into their respective ears before the first take. "Hey, kid . . . ," Lancaster shouted commandingly from across the set, ". . . what the hell are you telling those boys?" I turned, probably blushing, and actually tried to answer the question. Without knowing it, that was the first real step I took toward becoming a film director—under Burt's encouragement and prodding.

The first time I ever saw Burt Lancaster in person, he was standing in a doorway. I had an image of him putting his arms out, pushing lightly against the door jamb—and the ceiling and office coming down. He seemed too big for the doorway. When he came into the room he seemed too big for the room.

He is big, but not exceptionally so, certainly not by the standards of today's athletes. This impression comes from something else. From inside—an essence. Burt is a New York street-kid-intellectual. He's a stickball player who reads poetry and sings opera—a Harlem-neighborhood roughneck who devours every intellectual novel he can get his hands on. He loves to discover it all to argue, to work it over. His eyes glow, his gestures punch the air wildly; "Now think about this-here . . . !" he will exclaim, slipping into the New York east side argot of his youth.

When he was just out of high school he ran away from Harlem and joined the circus. No joke—he really ran away and joined the circus! And he "flew through the air with the greatest of ease." In 1967 he was still doing it. I used to go down to the gym on the old Goldwyn lot during lunch hour and watch him do giant-swings. Giant-swings without a safety rope and no one to spot him. He was in his fifties then, and could and did work all of us into the ground.

He taught himself to act. He literally made himself into a dynamic and complex actor. He did it with insatiable curiosity and endless hours of work. He has a singularity of focus and concentration that is like a laser. He's also comfortable in his own skin, enough so that he wastes no time feeling poorly about criticism. He takes from it what is there to be learned and simply gets on with it.

On screen, he was a dynamo. He still is, when he wants to be, but something else has been added; a grace, an elegance, a quietness, a modesty, an understanding about simplicity.

He was always so appealing on screen that most Americans thought he was just a great movie star. In Europe they knew better—the French, the Germans and Scandinavians, the Italians. When Visconti chose him for The Leopard there were a few raised eyebrows here. Not after they saw the picture. Do yourself a favor; if it's ever available—watch it. He is remarkable.

There's nothing devious about him; he leaves that to others. But a word of warning to anyone who tries it on him: he can't be fooled. I mean it.

He doesn't depend on reports—from critics, from agents, from heads of studios—on how he's doing. He knows how he's doing. His fortune doesn't rise or fall on the results of his latest picture. He knows better than the ups and downs. He always has known.

There's a movie by Jean-Luc Goddard, an early one, with Belmondo, where during a love scene Belmondo says to the girl, "Let's go to the movies, there's a picture with"—and he looks directly into the camera and smiles—"Burt Lancaster." It's a kind of renown that can't be explained in the usual terms. It has not much to do with grosses and less to do with blondness of hair or bone structure. And it can't be attributed to a certain picture, one picture that made him.

He made himself.

[coquelicoq]

le robert de poche: bougnat n. m. fam. et vieilli Marchand de charbon (qui tenait souvent un café)

me: somebody who sells coal...and drinks a lot of coffee? someone who sells coal while holding coffee? why would this be a thing, france?

wordreference french-to-english dictionary: bougnat nm argot, vieilli (vendeur de charbon et de boissons) (historical) coalman and barkeeper n

me: ...why would this be a thing, france??

[dolphin1812]

I’m still uncomfortable with Hugo’s way of describing argot, but I actually like the comparison to a prison brand being made visible. The discomfort is placed with the viewer, who is confronted with the reality of the misery present in society and is repelled. But that reaction is on them, not the argot speaker.

Overall, this will be brief. Unfortunately, I don’t know a lot of French – much less 19th-century French – so a lot of this goes over my head. Seeing the overlap between languages is fun, though! And while I’m skeptical that the addition of syllables to the end of words was just to hide their meaning as Hugo claims, it was fun to read about! And it makes sense to mention in a digression so closely intertwined with Patron Minette’s escape from prison through argot.

It’s notable that an example for the origin of slang is from prisoners waiting to be sent to Toulon: prisoners like Valjean. Hugo’s overall condescension towards argot is frustrating, but he’s also sympathetic for his time. He mentioned before that there was a lot of backlash to the use of slang in his previous work (Le Dernier Jour d’un Condamné), so for him to not only defend argot in fiction but indirectly link it to his protagonist is significant. His imagery of a “savior” is awful, though, implying that argot users (the lower classes, especially those with ties to crime) need a man (like, say, Hugo) to “rescue” them from their “corrupt” language. It’s uncomfortably close to ���civilizing” rhetoric.