In a nutshell | Champagne! Then ? Shall we sand or saber?

The French language is evolving at breakneck speed. Each week, our language advisor dissects the words and expressions that make the headlines or give us a hard time.



Even if the expressions sometimes make us laugh like a comb, it goes without saying that we should not go downhill and rather distribute them in a dropper, otherwise we risk being burned down.

One should not only show restraint, one should also understand expressions, for example knowing that the eye of the storm is a calm zone or that the dwelling is a delay and not a domicile in the expression. peril in the abode.

So, should we write toast the champagne Where slash the champagne ? Why not the two of them ? Journalists who use the verb sand almost always get messages telling them they’ve made a mistake. This is not the case, however, if they meant that we will celebrate an event by drinking champagne. The team hopes to sand the champagne soon.

Expression slash the champagne also exists, but it means opening a bottle with a sharp blow with a saber, which is not so common (Chef Martin Picard has already done this). You can also do it with a knife, there is no shortage of videos explaining how to do it. We can therefore slash the champagne before sandblasting it.

It is that the verb sablate does not just mean “cover with sand”. He already had the meaning of “swallow in one gulp”, rather lost nowadays. The dictionaries explain to us that in foundry, the expression throw in sand meant pouring into a mold of sand. We swallow our champagne as we pour molten metal into a mold.

Raymond Queneau had fun with both senses of the verb sand writing, in The flight of Icarus: They sand a champagne which creaks under their teeth.

Mail

Road closed

Question: Why is the word “barred” used on signs indicating that the road or sidewalks are closed to traffic? In English, we use, with good reason, road closed (closed) and not road locked (crossed out)?

Reply : It is quite correct to use the adjective Rod in the sense of “closed to traffic”. English closed translates well to Rod in this sense (Robert & Collins, Larousse).

The Robert indicates at the entrance Rod : “Closed by a bar, bars, a dam, a barrier, etc.” ” Closed street. In the Larousse, we read at cross out : “Close a passage by means of an obstacle, a barrier, etc.” ” To be closed, prohibited to traffic, speaking of a lane … The gendarmerie had blocked the road.

Why do we choose Rod rather than closed to traffic ? The Office québécois de la langue française provides the following explanation: “Route barrée is the term that appears on the signs of the Ministère des Transports du Québec. It makes it possible to specify that the road is closed deliberately, by the addition of a physical obstacle.

“In cases where traffic is permanently prohibited or if it is temporarily prohibited due to weather conditions rendering visibility zero or the road snowy, that is to say without the deliberate addition of a barrier or Another physical obstacle, we speak of a closed road. ”

However, we will rather say that a door is locked Where closed (with key), and no crossed out. Le Larousse indicates that Rod is familiar in this sense, but other works consider it to be an Anglicism. We can say that we are barring a door if we mean by that that we close it with a bar (also called botch).

Do you have questions about the French language? Ask them to our language advisor.


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