Quiz 9
Extrait de "It Pays to Increase Your Word Power", d'après la rubrique du "Reader's Digest" de Peter Funk.
“Les Français sont aussi stupides que les Américains”
Source: YouTube
Red letter day on the red carpet
The 82nd Oscar Awards Ceremony took place last night on
Hollywood Boulevard, five minutes from my home in Los Angeles. As is the custom
every year, the guests made their way to their seats by crossing a red carpet.
This custom is inspired by the English
expressions: “to roll out the red carpet” ("dérouler le tapis rouge")
or “to give someone red-carpet treatment.”
One definition of red carpet given by Webster’s New World College Dictionary is
“a very grand or impressive welcome and entertainment” and “to roll out the red
carpet” as “to welcome and entertain in a grand and impressive style”.
Other expressions and idioms contain the word “red”:
Like a red rag to a bull. (voir rouge) This denotes
any words or actions which infuriate someone. e.g. When he was reminded of his criminal record, it was like a red rag to a
bull. The origin of the term red rag dates to the late 17th
century. It first denoted a tongue. The Classical
Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue, 1785 contains the following
quotation: "Shut your potato trap, and give your red rag a holiday."
(The expression shut your trap is
still used in “vulgar” speech today.)
A related expression is to
see red, meaning to become enraged.
- A red letter day (un jour à marquer d'une pierre blanche) refers to a significant day. The term
originates in church lore and became popular with the appearance in 1549 of the
first Book of Common Prayer in which the calendar
showed special holy days in red ink. Red letter days were days for rejoicing
and celebration.
- To raise a red flag (signaler une alerte rouge) means to alert
someone to a danger. It is now commonly used in a commercial context, e.g. The sales figures for last month raise a red
flag.
- A red under every bed – (avoir des rouges sous son lit) This expression
is a vestige of McCarthyism in the USA. Senator
Joseph McCarthy (1908-1957) led a witch-hunt from the late 1940s to the late
1950s against anyone suspected of belonging to the Communist Party. The
Communists were known as “Reds”, on account of the color of the Communist Flag.
The expression a red under every bed denoted
the widespread atmosphere of suspicion that McCarthyism engendered.
- To paint the town red (faire la fête) means to
celebrate with much festivity and merriment.
- Red tape (paperasserie, bueaucratie) denotes excessive bureaucracy or
an exaggerated reliance on rules. To cut the red tape means to overcome those
bureaucratic obstacles.
- To catch someone red-handed (prendre quelqu'un la main dans le sac) means to catch someone
while he/she is committing a crime or a misdeed, or has just committed one (flagrans crimen).
The metaphor is that of a murderer caught with blood on his
hands.
- To be red in the face (rougir de honte) means to suffer embarrassment or shame (e.g. He was red in the face from all of the mistakes he made
while
announcing the winners' names) and: to exert oneself to
the utmost. For
example, You can try until you're red in the
face, but you still won't get straight A's.The phrase red
face
was already used in the late 1300s to refer to
blushing on
account of shame. However, the interjection "Is my face red!"
meaning "I am very embarrassed or ashamed," dates only from about 1930.The American Heritage® Dictionary of Idioms
Jonathan Goldberg
Blue tongue, blue tooth, blue moon
Blue tongue
La fièvre catarrhale (ou maladie de la langue
bleue) est une maladie virale non contagieuse, transmise par
des moucherons piqueurs du genre Culicoides (famille des Ceratopogonidae) touchant les ruminants sauvages
ou d'élevage.
Fin 2006, on ne connaît aucun cas de transmission à l'Homme.
(Wikipedia)
Précision de la Délégation
générale à la langue française et aux langues de France, du Ministère de la
culture et de la communication :
Maladie de la langue bleue
Synonyme : fièvre catarrhale ovine, FCO
Définition : Maladie virale dont l'agent est un virus du genre Orbivirus,
touchant les ruminants domestiques et sauvages et transmise par certaines
espèces de moucherons.
Note : Les experts emploient le terme « fièvre catarrhale ovine », bien que
cette maladie puisse toucher cliniquement d'autres espèces comme les bovins.
Équivalent étranger : blue tongue (en), bluetongue (en)
Ce terme ne doit être confondu avec « Bluetooth
© »
Bluetooth est une spécification de l'industrie des télécommunications. Elle utilise une technique radio courte distance destinée à simplifier les connexions entre les
appareils électroniques. Elle a été conçue dans le but de remplacer les câbles
entre les ordinateurs et les imprimantes, les scanneurs, les claviers, les souris, les manettes de jeu vidéo, les téléphones portables, les PDA, les systèmes et kits mains libres, les autoradios, les appareils
photo numériques, les lecteurs de code-barres, les bornes publicitaires interactives. Les premiers appareils utilisant
la version 3.0 de cette technologie sont apparus début 2010.
Notons en passant Blue Moon
Une lune bleue est une pleine lune « supplémentaire » qui se produit lorsqu'une année comporte 13
pleines lunes, au lieu de 12 lors d'une année habituelle.
En anglais on dit : « once in a blue
moon », qui veut dire très peu fréquemment.
Le film français “Logorama” remporte l’Oscar du meilleur court métrage d’animation
Parodie du film d'action, "Logorama" met en scène -entre autres- un Ronald McDonald en tueur psychopathe dans une ville inondée de logos, proposant ainsi une satire de la société de consommation.
Source vidéo: YouTube
Why the English language drives people UP a wall
The two-letter word 'UP.' has more meanings than any other two-letter word.
It is listed in the dictionary as an [adv], [prep], [adj], [n] or [v].
It's easy to understand UP when it is used to denote toward the sky or at the top of the list, but when we awaken in the morning, why do we wake UP?
At a meeting, why does a topic come UP? Why do we speak UP, and why are the officers UP for election …?
And why is it UP to the secretary to write UP a report? We call UP our friends, brighten UP a room, polish UP the silver, warm UP the leftovers and clean UP the kitchen? We lock UP the house and fix UP the old car.
At other times this little word has real special meaning. People stir UP trouble, line UP for tickets, work UP an appetite, and think UP excuses…
To be dressed is one thing, but to be dressed UP is special!
And this UP is confusing: A drain must be opened UP because it is stopped UP.
We open UP a store in the morning but we close it UP at night. We seem to be pretty mixed UP about UP!
To be knowledgeable about the proper uses of UP, look UP the word in the dictionary..
In a desk-sized dictionary, it takes UP almost 1/4 of the page and can add UP to about thirty definitions.
If you are UP to it, you might try building UP a list of the many ways UP is used. It will take UP a lot of your time, but if you don't give UP, you may wind UP with a hundred or more.
When it threatens to rain, we say it is clouding UP. When the sun comes out we say it is clearing UP. When it rains, it soaks UP the earth. When it does not rain for a while, things dry UP. One could go on & on, but I'll wrap it UP, for now… my time is UP !
Source: widely distributed on the Internet
Apprenez la prononciation anglaise en chanson
Source: YouTube
Anglicisme: “agression”
From SOQUIJ, http://soquij.qc.ca/fr/ressources-pour-tous/chroniques-linguistiques
C'est commettre un anglicisme que d'employer le mot «assaut» au sens d'agression. En effet, si l'anglais assault a les deux sens, le mot français assaut est principalement un terme d'art militaire et désigne la partie finale d'une attaque.
Le mot s'emploie aussi au figuré pour illustrer des forces qui
semblent livrer combat: «Les assauts des vagues contre la falaise
produisent un grondement sourd.» Ainsi, un salarié ne peut être
congédié pour «assaut» sur la personne d'un collègue; on devrait parler
d'agression ou de voies de fait.
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