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Team "Deuxième". French team thread. | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
 songlines Pro Member Canada flickr.com/photos/cp Joined 5212 days ago 729 posts - 1056 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: French Personal Language Map | Message 113 of 232 11 February 2014 at 1:49am | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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What an intriguing question. We may be back to the bunnies, Jeffers...
"Papillon" seems to also be the name of of a breed of rabbits. Fr Wikipedia The English name for "Petit Papillon" is "Dwarf Papillon". (There's also a "Giant Papillon" rabbit.) As to how "petit papillon" might come to mean "hold your horses", I'm stumped. There was something in one of the rabbit breeding sites which said that the Giant Papillon was more docile than the smaller breeds. Perhaps it's a reference to the excitability of the small variety...? As in "whoa, calm down, little one...", with possibly condescending overtones? But it's such an obscure reference, it seems so unlikely. Unless there was a period when Petit Papillons were a pet fad, and known for their active/ excitable ways (and the phrase was coined then)...? Quite an odd little puzzle. Edited to add: I found a connection between rabbits and butterflies. Wabbit glossary
Which unfortunately doesn't get us any closer to the "hold your horses" translation (and probably entirely irrelevant, as indeed this whole bunny business may likewise be). Edited by songlines on 11 February 2014 at 2:13am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| PeterMollenburg Senior Member AustraliaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5479 days ago 821 posts - 1273 votes Speaks: English* Studies: FrenchB1 | Message 114 of 232 11 February 2014 at 2:18am | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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Hi guys,
Here's an unrelated expression I came across (ok I just quickly found one at random, as I've been a bit absent lately): 'être le dindon de la farce' = to be fooled, or duped ...and keeping with the rabbit theme: 'poser un lapin à quelqu'un' = to stand somebody up Edited by PeterMollenburg on 11 February 2014 at 3:10am 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| PeterMollenburg Senior Member AustraliaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5479 days ago 821 posts - 1273 votes Speaks: English* Studies: FrenchB1 | Message 115 of 232 11 February 2014 at 2:52am | IP Logged | |||||||||||
Hope you don't mind Songlines... I've been looking up these words/expressions and with this one I have found (Larousse, Oxford Hachette) that champignon actually literally means accelerator (as well as mushroom) in familiar language (I guess the figurative use has become common use?). other ways to express the same: mettre le pied sur le champignon, or: appuyer sur le champignon (& écraser le champignon) = to put one's foot down, to step on it (in relation to a vehicle) PM Edited by PeterMollenburg on 11 February 2014 at 3:11am 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| kanewai Triglot Senior Member United States justpaste.it/kanewai Joined 4892 days ago 1386 posts - 3054 votes Speaks: English*, French, Marshallese Studies: Italian, Spanish | Message 116 of 232 11 February 2014 at 3:01am | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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I don't have a good explanation for petit papillon ... but I had fun looking it up on
Google Books! Here are some excerpts I found that won't help at all: "This poor petite papillon of a Mama, yes, ma filleule. On all of her blood, her race, there has rested for long years a dark, terrible doom. She does not know it, she has been kept in ignorance of it. When the strange, wild spells, in which she is not herself, come upon her she loses, ah, ma filleule, this pauvre petit papillon loses all things - memory, reason, even, ma filleule, even love itself." Grapes of Thorns: A Novel. by Mary Teresa Waggaman, 1917 Et parfois sur le ciel et la mer uniformément gris, un peu de rose s'ajoutait avec un raffinement exquis, cependant qu'un petit papillon s'était endormi au bas de la fênetre semblait apposer avec ses ailes au bas de <<cette harmonie gris aet rose>> dans le goût de celles de Whistler, la signature favorite du maitre de Chesca. - Marcel Proust, Oeuvres There is a species of insects sometimes to be met with on the coast of Kent and Sussex, which has never been described in any system of etymology that I ever saw. Its from is generally very slender, it walks on its hinder legs, with a quick mincing gait; its face is narrow, pale, and smooth, ... it prattles in a dialect half French, half English ... moreover it emits a strong odour of musk and eau de Cologne ... there are many to be found, in sheltered places, all along the shore, any warm day between the beginning of July and October. I have heard some ladies caress an insect of this kind under the name of Papillon- ""mon cher petit Papillon de mer!" - Albany Masonic Record and Albany Saturday Magazine, 1830 <<Petit papillon bleu, qui voles en tout lieu, Je voudrais être toi>> disait le petit George, A travers les épis courant dans un champ d'orge - From l'Enfant et le Papillon, quoted in La Semaine des familles, 1865 Petit papillon volage Tu ressembl' à mon amant. Oui ! l'amour n'est un badinage, L'amour n'est qu'un passe-temps; Croyez-le, cher amant, Faites-en autant - Chanson populairs des Pyrénées françaises, 1926 Il a quand même un petit défaut: il veut toujours faire plusieurs chose à la fois, au lieu d'en finir une et après seulement passer à la deuxième. C'est pour cela que Marie l'appelle son <<petit papillon>> Le vol du papillon, Corinne Roche, 2013 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| songlines Pro Member Canada flickr.com/photos/cp Joined 5212 days ago 729 posts - 1056 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French Personal Language Map | Message 117 of 232 11 February 2014 at 3:39am | IP Logged | |||||||||||
- Don't mind at all; delighted to have the additional info. - Thanks!
Perhaps that may be the clue to the "hold your horses" usage? The interlocuter (like a small butterfly) trying to do several things at the same time, dashing off hither and yon, till verbally "reined in" by the speaker? My rough translation of quote: He has, all the same, a small fault: he always wants to do several things at the same time, instead of finishing one, and only after that moving on to the second. It's for this reason that Marie calls him her "little butterfly". [Please feel free to tweak/ corrrect my translation.] Glad the "passer un coup de chiffon" reference got sorted out too, Kanewai - And you're right, that video clip is dramatic. Quite a demonstration of the power of the sea. Edited to add:
You did indeed. - Love them! And that Grape of Thorns quote is quite the Gothick melodrama, isn't it? Edited by songlines on 11 February 2014 at 4:15am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| Arekkusu Hexaglot Senior Member Canada bit.ly/qc_10_lec Joined 5384 days ago 3971 posts - 7747 votes Speaks: English, French*, GermanC1, Spanish, Japanese, Esperanto Studies: Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Estonian | Message 118 of 232 11 February 2014 at 3:08pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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Not sure what to say about "petit papillon", but the expression "minute, papillon" is fairly common, especially with children, and means "slow down" or "hold on".
You can find more info here and here. 4 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| Cristianoo Triglot Senior Member Brazil https://projetopoligRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4124 days ago 175 posts - 289 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, FrenchB2, English Studies: Russian | Message 119 of 232 11 February 2014 at 5:46pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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I came across this drôle expression:
Ce n'est pas la mer à boire meaning It is not the end of the world :) 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| Jeffers Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4912 days ago 2151 posts - 3960 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Hindi, Ancient Greek, French, Sanskrit, German | Message 120 of 232 11 February 2014 at 6:35pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
Dag snabbit! You are right, and somehow I transformed "minute" to "petit" in my brain! I went on Micmacs to find the argument, and it occurs at just about 1:09 (just at the end of the cannoning across the river scene). Sure enough, it's "minute papillon"... 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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