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!”
Meaning The primary meaning of the French verb “dessiner” is “to draw,” “to design,” “to map out,” “to outline,” “to depict” or even “to portray.” For example, “Il a su dessiner un tableau vivant de la scène.” Conjugation “Dessiner” is a regular “-er” verb, meaning it follows the typical conjugation patterns for this type of…
The French saying “manger sur le pouce” translates literally as “to eat on the thumb.” Figuratively, however, it means “to eat quickly,” “to eat rapidly,” or “to eat hastily.” It dates back to the 19th century. People like factory workers and soldiers often ate on the spot, with one hand holding a piece of bread…
The French expression “rabattre le caquet à” is commonly used to describe the act of putting someone in their place or silencing someone who is overly boastful or talkative. Literal meaning: Literally, “rabattre le caquet” could be translated as “to silence chatter” or “to shut a noisy hen’s beak.” The imagery is quite vivid: one…
This expression means “for your information,” “for information,” “in order to teach you how to conduct yourself in a situation,” “to inform you,” or “for information.” The word “gouverne” is related to governing and government. It dates back to the 12th century, but in the 18th century took the meaning of “serving as a rule…
The French idiom “aller à la selle” means literally “to go to the saddle.” But it doesn’t really have anything to do with horse riding. What it literally means is “to go to the toilet,” or “to have a bowel movement.” The saying is somewhat dated, so it is not used very frequently these days,…
“Avoir les jambes en coton” means literally “to have legs of cotton” or “to have cotton legs.” It means to have no strength left in your legs, to have weak legs or to have unsteady legs. In English, you would probably say that you had “legs like jelly,” “jelly legs,” “rubber legs” or “shaky legs.”…
