A lot of huile de coude will go into polishing up these guys, in Saint-Maurice-Sur-Eygues
: elbow
grease
Did you know: the French use more than their elbows to work up a
good idiom… they use their wrists and arms, too! Synonyms to "huile de
coude" include "huile de bras" (arm oil) and "huile de poignet" (wrist
oil).
* * *
:: Audio File
:: Listen to Jean-Marc pronounce today’s word and definition:
Download huile_de_coude.mp3 . Download huile_de_coude.wav
Huile de
coude (a.k.a. "huile de bras"): vigueur physique, volonté de bien faire, qui
remplace avantageusement l’huile pour graisser les ressorts de
notre machine. / Elbow grease (a.k.a. "arm oil): physical vigor, the
will to do well, which has the advantage of replacing oil for greasing up the mainsprings of our machine. –definition from the "Dictionnaire de la
langue verte" by Alfred Delvau
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
New,
in books: "Pardon My French: Unleash Your Inner Gaul."
Did you know that
"faire un canard," literally means "to do a duck" … but also refers to
dunking sugar lumps in coffee and is the preferred way to get a kick of sugar
caffeine in France?… And that "tablette de chocolat" literally
means "chocolate bar" but is also the term for a finely muscled male stomach
in
France. Check out Charles Timoney’s book, here.
.
..
A second cup of coffee was not going to arrange
the jumble of nerve endings that was mine last Sunday morning. Looking around
the house, instead of Calm, I saw only Choses-A-Faire!*
Choses-A-Faire
and Things-To-Do are two most unwelcome weekend guests, especially on Sunday,
a supposed day of rest. I set down the coffee pot and handed my cup to
Jean-Marc, who appeared to be in the same nervy predicament as I: tired and
on edge. Over-commitment and clutter once again conspired to steal the
present moment.
After exchanging a few preliminary snips, snaps, and TAKE
THAT’S!, it dawned on me that we had some powerful energy for hire and why
waste it in the kitchen when we had two flower beds that needed weeding?
Rather than picking on each other, we might pick on dandelions, foxtails, and
crabby crabgrass instead!
In the minutes that followed, we exchanged our
boxing gloves for garden gants,* put down our pride, picked up pioches,* and
set aside just enough righteousness in time to wield a rake.
We said
our apologies indirectly, of course…
Me: (backing into Jean-Marc with
my wheelbarrow…) Oh… Sorry!
Jean-Marc: Désolé, chérie* (after launching
an eyes-wide-with-terror escargot* into the air–missing me by a snail’s
breath!–only to be reminded that we don’t sling snails, we SET them down
somewhere else).
By the end of the morning the hippy happy rose hips*
were heureuse* and the waist-high weeds were woebegone. "Take that!" I said,
pitching another bunch of the mauvaises-herbes* into the wheelbarrow. In
their place, sweet-scented flowers now stretched out their once-bundled
branches. Ahhhh…
As for our own bundled branches of nerves, good old
fashioned elbow grease* did the trick once
again.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~References~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
choses
à faire = things to do; le gant (m) = glove; une pioche (f) = pick,
pickax(e); désolé chérie = sorry, dear; un escargot (m) =snail; rose hip
(flower) = églantine (in French) a.k.a. "gratte-cul" ("scratch-ass" errr…
"scratch-(yer)-bottom"); heureuse (heureux) = happy; une mauvaise herbe = weed; elbow grease = huile
(f) de coude, in French
http://www.widgetbox.com/widget/french-word-a-day
.
~~~~~~~~~~~Shopping~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Exercises in French Phonics
Painless
French: grammar, pronunciation, idioms, idiocies (culture) and more!
In
French music: French Playground, a musical rendez-vous of fun French and
French Creole songs that will delight children of all ages.
Discover more from French Word-A-Day
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.