The French expression “Appuyez sur le champignon !” literally means “Step on the mushroom!” Why would you tell someone to step on the mushroom? Because the accelerator pedal on early motor vehicles was originally shaped like a hemisphere or a dome. Kind of like a mushroom. So “Appuyez sur le champignon !” means “step on the gas!”, “speed up!”, “hurry up!” or simply “accelerate!”
The French saying “travailler pour le roi de Prusse” translates literally as “to work for the King of Prussia.” What it really means is “to work for nothing,” or “to not be paid for your efforts.” The idiom first appeared around the middle of the 19th century. Its origin remains unclear, however. There are a…
Homonyms are words that share the same spelling or pronunciation but have different meanings. In this article, we’ll delve into two French homonyms: “parti” and “partie.” Meaning and Usage 1. Le parti: 2. La partie: Etymology 1. Le Parti: Latin Origin: The word “parti” has its roots in the Latin word “partitus,” which is the…
It is a common mistake to try to translate idiomatic expressions from English into French, word for word. The example of the English phrase “the writing is on the wall” shows us that this approach is often not effective. The English idiom “the writing is on the wall” originates from the Biblical story of Belshazzar’s…
“Un phoque” is a French masculine noun meaning “a seal,” referring to the marine mammal. Idiomatic expressions Etymology The word “phoque” is derived from the Latin “phoca,” a feminine noun meaning “seal.” Its first surviving recorded usage in French was in 1532, when it was spelled “focque.” By 1573 its spelling had changed to “phoque”…
“Mettre les pouces” is a French idiom that literally means “to put the thumbs.” What it really means is to stop resisting, to give in, to admit defeat or to abandon something. It dates from the end of the 18th century. In that same era, a similar expression “coucher les pouces” (to put the thumbs to…
“que dalle” is a French saying that means “nothing” or “nothing at all.” In modern French, “une dalle” is a paving stone, but this has nothing to do with “que dalle.” The origins of this expression are unclear, with a few theories in existence. One is that it comes from the word for a five franc…