pardonnez mon français
Language: English
Part of speech: phrase
Etymology: From a French calque of pardon my French, perhaps from the irony of using actual French to apologize for the "French" (obscenity) the speaker worries might cause offense.
Senses: examples: text: Out on the street, the bald guy, you know, Julie’s, pulls out these car keys and heads straight for this pink Buick Electra convertible! They could just die, and the little runt is grinning like a shiteater, pardonnez mon français.
ref: 1988, Trey Ellis, chapter 28, in Platitudes (Vintage Contemporaries), New York, N.Y.: Vintage Books, →ISBN, page 100:
text: Pardonnez mon francais, mais why the fuck did God distribute these "possessions" of ours so unevenly?
ref: 1996 September 10, Wayne Delia, “The Question: Is God "All Powerful"?”, in alt.bible (Usenet), archived from the original on 18 May 2025:
text: I always thought it was "tabernacle" and, for emphasis "chalice du tabernacle." (pardonnez mon Français, SVP) I was always amused how the expression would shock les vieilles femmes de Caraquet where I spent the summers in my youth but these same women used four letter English expletives without a seconds' thought.
ref: 1998 July 12, Tony Fitzgerald, “NB.FRANCAIS”, in nb.general (Usenet), archived from the original on 18 May 2025:
text: Clearly Saddam wants to push things up until the eleventh hour, and is seriously testing his limits. Therein lies his unwillingness to cooperate, and his potential for further wrongdoing. Therefore, one way or another, that fucker has got to go, pardonnez mon Francais.
ref: 2003 February 11, Dave, “OT: Blair plagarizes, Powell quotes and praises it?”, in alt.guitar.amps (Usenet), archived from the original on 19 May 2025:
text: “Can you imagine me buying something off someone?” he [Eddie Irvine] asks. “What is the point? I was in Paris the other week and I met this guy who was doing cocaine, out of his hand. I’m thinking: Get a f**king life!” Pardonnez mon francais, but Eddie Irvine has a f***ing life all right. Apart from the Ferraris, the helicopter, the private jet and the millions in the bank, he has two houses in Dalkey (“I love Dalkey — it’s one of the most special places in the world”), an apartment in New York he has slept in four nights in as many years, homes in Miami, St-Tropez, Macau and Milan, and a floating shag-palace called Anaconda which he keeps moored in the bay off Portofino.
ref: 2003 August 31, Barry Egan, “Steady, Eddie”, in Sunday Independent, Dublin, →ISSN, →OCLC, “Living” section, page 3, column 3:
text: His zeal for sports and for following them on TV, and his excessive taste for long celebrations and orgiastic festivities were also wearing thin on some of his lieutenants, those frontline soldiers who had gone through, pardonnez mon français, hell and back, jumping up and down and leading strangers astray and murdering and chopping them and then eating them along with pals.
ref: 2006, Amir Parsa, chapter 10, in Drive-by Cannibalism in the Baroque Tradition: or, The Book of Being Sick of It All: It All It All It All, Multiplied by Infinity, Brooklyn, N.Y.: UpSet Press, published 2015, →ISBN, part II, page 221:
text: I think the second part is that I receive and believe messages that I'm a bad person. This is (pardonnez mon français) bullshit, and maybe I'm not just speaking about my own problems here, but maybe someone can relate, and realize that they're also being handed a steaming load of emotional crap.
ref: 2006 March 1, Ian Rastall, “Here's a thought”, in alt.support.anxiety-panic.moderated (Usenet), archived from the original on 19 May 2025:
glosses: Synonym of pardon my French.
synonyms: word: pardon my French
Related terms: excuse my français
pardon mon français
pardon my français
pardonnez my French