Because French Life is what we do best… photo taken in nearby Beaumes de Venises.
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A Day in a French Life… by Kristin Espinasse
Nous? The word of the day is "nous"? I can just see the emails come roaring in:
"Nous?! Nous! Why do you choose such simple words? They are trop facile for me! I'm signing off! À Dieu!"
Whoa! Calmos!* Hold your horses already. If you don't care for today's word choice, "nous", then pick any one of the half-dozen others that appear in this edition. How about calmos? Now wasn't that a fun word? (One we hear often in my household: CALMOS!!!! Just goes to show you how passionate things are 'round here, what with grapes, dogs, and us four "frogs".)
Speaking of passion… I mean—patience—holding my horses is a personal new years resolution: it means that we will not jump to conclusions or act over-spuriously* (is "over-spurious" a word? How about "spurious"? Hmmm. maybe "hasty" is what I meant…).
And speaking of what I meant : may we all give each other the conversational benefit of the doubt in this new year. May we each and every one of us have the right to rephrase ourselves until we can get our precious primal point across. And, au sujet de primal… may we all walk in love and not lust (that is: ever lusting for what we do not have). Instead, may we relish in reconnaissance.*
Whoa. Where did all that come from? I had simply set out to write an essay on nous, You and me: us, that is. I think I'll leave this epistle as is, simple–for that is another new year's goal: Holding horses in simplicity! What could be grander? (Au fait—is "grander" a word? Well, if you want to get fancy, then how about grandeur?!)
Amicalement,
Kristin
P.S.: Yeesh. I just looked up the word "spurious", which means "out of wedlock", so, in essence, what I have said is that we will hold our horses in the new year and not act out of wedlock! I think we can make that definition fit… somehow–perhaps with a bit of creative urging and splurging—which reminds to wish for one more thing: may we all have a creative urging and splurging new year!
Comments
Mom and I agree, the comments section is the best part of French Word-A-Day. If you haven't yet left a comment, then why not join in at this, the start of a new year–with new French and Francophile friends waiting to hear from you? Click here to leave a comment.
And now for a recap: the word of the day is:
nous (new) pronoun
: we, us, we ourselves, us ourselves
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Rejoignez nous! Come and join us here at French Word-A-Day. The more the merrier!
nous = us
trop facile (or, if you want to get slangy, use "trop fastoche") = too easy
à dieu = goodbye forever (or "until God")
calmos = calm down!
au sujet de = speaking of
la reconnaissance (f) = gratitude, gratefulness
au fait = by the way
amicalement = warmly
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A Day in a Dog's Life
(dedicated to a new reader/child editor: my 8-year-old nephew Payne Stiteler. Bonjour Payne!)
Smokey (perusing the family photo album): You mean to tell me they went to their first professional American football game… and they didn't bring moi along? I'd have melted those cheerleaders' hearts faster than the Arizona sun!
Braise (Smokey's mom) says: Son, indeed: your good looks would have knocked them over faster than the Mediterranean Mistral!*
***
Note to my nephew: "Le mistral" is a strong wind here in Provence. Your Aunt Kristi lives near the windiest city in France: Avignon. This may be why she chose a cozy indoor career in writing (and not farming, like Uncle Jimmy—who has to brave the icy gusts while pruning his winter vines).
Smokey (left) wearing a "sports" necklace my daughter made him. Braise (right) sporting a spiral of Christmas ribbon…
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In film: Julie & Julia. I loved this film! Saw it twice then my sister and I bought the cookbooks!
Vine therapy (for the face) by Caudalie
Refreshing
moisterizing mist:
The Big Book of French Songs – Piano/Vocal/Guitar Songbook
A collection of 70 songs from and about France: April
in Paris – Autumn Leaves – Beyond the Sea – Can Can – C'est Magnifique
– Comme Ci, Comme Ça – I Dreamed a Dream – I Love Paris – Je Ne Sais
Pas (To You, My Love) – La Marseillaise – Let It Be Me (Je
T'appartiens) – A Man and a Woman (Un Homme et Une Femme) – My Man (Mon
Homme) – Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien – The Poor People of Paris (Jean's
Song) – Sand and Sea – Un Grand Amour (More, More & More) – Where
Is Your Heart – and more.
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I’m new to your site! What caught MY eye were the blue chairs/table from Baumes de Venises! We love that town; and…I love those colors.
Look forward to many new words!
I know you work hard at the phonetic equivalents – it’s not easy to accommodate every accent in English. Would ‘nue’ or ‘nooh’ be closer? We, in the Midwest, pronounce ‘new’ with lips slightly apart and more vertical as in ‘nyoo’. Nous requires a slight pucker,or slight pursing of the lips – a more compact opening with more tension instead of the relaxed, lazy lips and tongue of ‘new’. A little air escapes as you say it, especially before a vowel. See, it’s not ever as simple as it seems! Your readers can comment on anything, can’t we. btw…I love the brilliant blue table and chairs, also.
Back home we used often the word “calmos ” I always thought because our 2nd language was spanish ! Nini
Kristin, a while back you recommended a book, La Vie d’un Simple by Guillaumin, and I bought it and have just finished reading it and wanted to comment on it. It is a very touching and beautiful book. It gives rich insight into the life of agrarian France at the end of the nineteenth century, a period when social structure was still amazingly feudal, and yet it was not so long ago. This book shows how the métayers, or tenant farmers, were exploited by the landowners and how incredibly hard thier lives were. The character of Tiennon was very moving. The description of his almost freezing to death as a child because his father left him to go off drinking was heart-wrenching and beautifully written. He forgives his father as a matter of course, just as he accepts his hard lot in life, simply doing his best, which unassumingly borders on the heroic. I have to admit that I’m not sure if Guillaumin really based this on someone he knew as he says in his introduction, or if Tiennon is totally fictional. What do you think? I had to constantly have the French-English dictionary at hand and learned many new agricultural terms, such as cheptel-livestock, défricher-to clear land, pâtre-shepherd, bouvier-cowherd, fenil-hayloft,and many others. One word, which seemed quite important, I still don’t have a clear understanding of: pansage, which means grooming, I think it could be the grooming of oneself or of ones livestock. The grooming of the livestock seems to have been an important part of the rythm of the day. The time of day was often referred to as being before or after the morning or evening pansages. But was this a really thorough grooming, i.e., washing and brushing all of the animals, and did it include feeding them? I wanted to know more about what this pansage involved. Anyway, thank you for the recommendation and if you have others, I’d love to know. I love reading in French because it keeps me learning new words and reinforcing vocabulary I had previously learned. I recommend Suite Française by Irene Nemirovsky and Désert by LeClézio (winner of last year’s Nobel prize in Literature), both well worth the effort of reading.
J’aime si bien votre blog et vos photos, surtout ceux des chiens!
J’ai aussi un chien d’or comme Braise qui s’appelle Tomaso
Giovanni Albinoni apres le compositeur italien. Mon chien etait
ne le premier et il a recu de sa mere un temperament d’un roi de jeu. Alors, il m’a ensiegnee comme son eleve.
Si j’etudie tres bien et suive sa queue remuee je commence
a chanter et danser! Comment il soit un bon professeur!
Comment il fait grandi mon coeur!
I love the pics you put forth especially ones about Smokey…..the french word a day really is fasinating really educational keep up the good work…………
Bonjour Kristin! D’ailleurs il est avec gratitude au mot francais qu’un jour ce j’ai une meilleure connaissance de la langue, tout je peux dire est vous remercie Kristin..