A shop dog in Grignan — a town in the Drôme made famous by Madame de Sévigné. (Re today’s photo: You can just see my mom’s reflection in the shop window. She’s wearing a bright-colored poncho. See her? And see another picture of our tech savvy chien at the end of this post).
mouchoir-pouchoir (moosh-wahr-poosh-wahr) noun, masculine
: hanky-panky
[from “mouchoir” (“handkerchief” or “hanky”) & “pouchoir” (a made-up French word that rhymes with “mouchoir”)]
See this word… and many more endearing terms and expressions, here.
To comment on today’s term, “mouchoir-pouchoir” please use this box:
*To play the word game along with us:
1. Cover your eyes
2. Open a French dictionary to a random page. Let your finger drop to the page.
3. Discover the word beneath your fingertip.
If you do not have a dictionary handy, you might share the first word that comes
to mind. Don’t forget to add the definition and any related expressions to the
comments box.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~Shopping~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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My husband is fond of saying “Whatever” and my friends from France asked us about it. The best I could come up with was “Zut Alors”. They laughed and seemed to “get it” but I am wondering if there is a close match for that “Whatever” expression. Any help out there?
I’m not playing the game properly here, but the first word that came to my mind on seeing the photograph was “chiocciola: which means “snail”and is also the word for the @ in e-mail addresses.
Passante’s entry sent me on a quest in my online dictionaries…. I always loved that @ ‘caractère’…
The French call it ‘arrobas’ with many spellings (arrobase, aroba, arobas etc).
Canadian French: Arrobas or a-commercial
Italian: chiocciola
Spanish: arrobas
Then on to ‘ampersand’ [&] which is the marvellous “esperluète” ….
What fun – Super-chouette!
Whatever – n’importe! That is my translation of whatever.
One of my favourite words is “quotidien” – a saying from A. de St. Exupery “Le bonheur est de bien faire le travail quotidien.”
Calgary, Canada
A word that I heard only once but made it’s mark: “tomatine”. I have since heard that it was a Canadian proposal for replacing the English word “ketchup”. Not sure how true that is, but it cute.
The irony is that ketchup is not really an English word, coming from the Indonesian ketjap or Chinese ketsiap (which mean “tomato sauce”).
The Italian “chiocciola” looks very similar to the French “coccinelle” (ladybug beetle) from the Latin family of insects “Coccinellidae”. “Coccinelle” is also the French name for the Volkswagon Beetle.
Hi Kristi, I’m in Amsterdam airport, met a darling young man who is letting me use his computer. Actually he is typing this right now. Just wanted to say thank you for everything, I love you. Mom
Tu dis n’importe quoi! This is a pretty close translation of “whatever”!!!!
Julie Schorr et
Les eleves de Granite Hills high school
Hi Kristin,
Is the dog in the store window real? My students would like to know. Merci!
Julie Schorr
El Cajon,Ca
Granite Hills high school
Bonjour Madame Schorr, Salut les élèves! Yes, that is a real dog. I’ve included a second photo at the end of the post (the dog is looking at the camera this time).
Thank you for reading my blog in class.
A Heavenly Blue Morning Glory pour Jules from Elinor in St. Louis, MO.
a stock of show-stopping fragrant stock (purple) from marin county, CA, USA
for jules.
kristin, thanks for sharing yr fam.
elizabeta
Une marguerite blanche pour Jules d’Alexandria, Virginia aux Etats-Unis! 🙂
Une magnolia pour Jules de Mississippi!
Along the lines of mouchoir/pouchoir, our word for a really long hot shower is pouvoir/shouvoir, or used daily, simply taking a “shouvoir”
Favorite words:
Ronronner–to purr
Caramboler–to collide with
Le crepuscule–twilight
A garden of fiesta bright moss roses –lat. portulaca, fr. roses moussesuses(?) — for Jules
I miss my mum — she’s always in my thoughts, and I just planted “pensées” at the cemetery, so sending some along to dear Jules also, from Ontario, Canada.
my favorite french word is guimauve. it means marshmallow. i love saying it over and over. it makes me smile 🙂
A hibiscus from Florida for Jules
bleuets for julesfrom Jeanne in St.Paul
Though not the first of May, a Brin de Muguet (lily of the valley) from Sidney, OH.