French literature

A collection of 30 posts

French literature

Gotelef

honeysuckle, Tristan and Isolde, and romance novels

Judy Cuevas/Judith Ivory

French letters and English hats

condoms, romance novels, rivers of forgetfulness, and loving monsters

French literature

Crush and pash

the overpowering violence of infatuations, Renoir and Maupassant, and of course, romance novels

expressions

I do cock a snook, but not at thee

rude gestures, death, and romance novels

fantasy romance

Ask nicely

PLEASE, adv., int. I’ve been trying to teach the toddler to say “please” when he shouts “MORE BLUEBERRIES” at me, or his dad, or anyone in the general vicinity who might have access to blueberries. For a while he found it easier to say in American Sign Language, usually

French literature

Roosters, horses, ginger, figs

COCKTAIL, n. I was at a bar with some friends and one of them said, “Where does the word ‘cocktail’ come from? No, don’t look it up—it can’t possibly be as good as what I’m imagining.” Telling me not to look up a word has never

French literature

Sakes alive!

SAKE, n. This noun no longer exists on its own in English. We gotta say “for God’s sake” or “for fuck’s sake” or “for the sake of [whatever].” I was gonna try to come up with a counter example, “sake” on its own, to explain what we can’

French literature

Gender outlaws

COPE, v. A reader recently asked me about the use of “cope”and “full of matter” in these lines of Shakespeare’s As You Like It, at the end of Act II, scene 1: DUKE SENIOR And did you leave him in this contemplation? SECOND LORD We did, my lord,

French literature

Footstools and meat markets

SHAMBLES, n. Building on my last newsletter’s look at “fiasco,” let’s stick with that theme and keep looking at words for big messes. The etymology for this one is, accordingly, very messy—but in the best possible way. “Shambles” originally comes from Latin “scamellum,” meaning a little bench

Notre-Dame de Paris

Baby shoes

Some mentions of infant loss (in fiction) in this one, just a heads-up. If you want to give that a pass, scroll down to below the picture. SOULIER, n. This is a French word for “shoe.” It’s not the first French word for “shoe” this newsletter has discussed: I

French literature

Messes and romance novels

DISHEVEL(L)ED, adj. Some Englishes spell this word with one L and some with two, so I’m trying to have it both ways, as usual. An adjective meaning messy or disordered, especially regarding someone’s personal appearance, this word popped up in my recent reading of Notre-Dame de

French literature

The OG Cathedral

OGEE, n., adj. and OGIVE, n., adj. I first heard the word “ogee” while taking a class about Gothic art and architecture in college, and I had absolutely no idea what it meant. I couldn’t parse it at all. I remember thinking, “Surely my extremely upper-crust white British art

US history

On the skids

SKID, v., n. I originally looked up this word because after reading Aster Glenn Gray’s Tramps and Vagabonds (discussed in the reviews below), I was wondering about the expression “skid row.” But it turns out “skid” itself was more exciting than predicted. I primarily think of it as a

French literature

False cities and restorations

FAUBOURG, n., RESTAURANT, n. A good way to make yourself sad during a pandemic—not that we have a shortage! and admittedly this sadness is trivial and selfish—is to read a book about a city you can’t travel to that lists restaurants you couldn’t safely eat inside

art history

Furbelows and dandies

FURBELOW, n. I’ve been reading Valerie Steele’s Paris Fashion: A Cultural History and J. A. Barbey d’Aurevilly’s Du Dandysme et de G. Brummell (usually called The Anatomy of Dandyism in English) as research for the romance novel I’m writing that is set in nineteenth-century Paris,

body or sex words

Let's have a bouba

BOOBS, n. This term for breasts shows up in print in US English for the first time in 1929, which means people were saying it before that. “Boobies” is older than just plain “boobs,” and it’s a variation on “bubbies,” which goes all the way back to the 1600s

French literature

Reading societies

LESEGESELLSCHAFT, n. I have no business talking about German words in this newsletter, as I do not speak German (and some of you do!), but I love a long German word. One of my favorite professors, whenever he veered into a topic he didn’t have a degree in, would

animal words

Not all rats are kings

RAT KING, n. This newsletter has discussed etymologies related to foxes, butterflies, lobsters, and dogs, and this week, it’s all about rats—or rather, rat kings. A rat king, in case you are blessed not to know this, is a bunch of rats knotted together by their tails or

animal words

They know the secrets of the sea and do not bark

LOBSTER, n. Okay, since the etymology for “butterfly” was so rewarding, I wanted to check out some other animal words. For “lobster,” Bon Appétit is on the case and I’m just gonna share a chunk of their article because it’s wonderful: …the Ancient Romans went for concision: their

animal words

Butter gremlins

Before I get into words & books this week, I want you all to know that my beloved says “I LOVE IT, IT’S IN THE NEWSLETTER, DONE” whenever I mention an interesting word. You have to imagine those phrases as they would be spoken in this Key & Peele

French literature

Fo(u)nt of wisdom or whatever

FONT, n. This word came up in conversation this week, as in a set of typographical characters. I thought maybe it was related to fount/fountain, and that the semantic connection was inkwells and liquids, but in fact, “font”—whether you mean a set of printing press characters or a

French history

Gardens and cemeteries

NAPOLÉON, n. Here’s a word with all sorts of meanings, very different in French and English. If you say “napoleon,” you might be talking about * Napoléon B(u)onaparte, AKA Napoléon, AKA Napoléon le Grand, AKA Boney,* a Corsican soldier who rose up in the French military to become

French history

An addendum

The newsletter I just sent out was supposed to include this image of Jacques-Louis David’s famous 1793 painting The Death of Marat, but I was in a hurry and forgot it. Here you can see Marat, stabbed in his bathtub, and possibly the drapery in the painting is the

animal words

The Fantastic Mr. Renard

RENARD, n. This is how you say “fox” in French. It’s not what you’d expect from the Latin, where the word for “fox” is variously spelled vulpes, vulpis, volpes, and provides the source of English vulpine, which means “related to foxes” and also “crafty, cunning.” Old French did

French literature

Dead Dove Do Not Eat

LEGERDEMAIN, n. This word is a fancy French import that means “sleight of hand,” which is funny because it’s literally light of hand in French, just all run together: lightofhand. (This looks like a tumblr username and now I’m kind of mad that it was never mine.) Legerdemain,