Clarksville weekly chronicle. (Clarksville, Tenn.) 1873-1890, 1878-08-17
English and French Slang.
London Daily News.

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It may be remarked that slang
often converts harmless words into
insulting epithets, hereby causing
foreigners, who translate the trivil
expressions of their own tongue lit
orally to be seriously misunderstood.
That very word trivial, by the way,
has a sense of impropriety attached
to it in French, and is never used
but to designate language of the
coarsest kind.
In English we say of a fast young
man that he is a 'tpickle" and COM
pare a proud, fussy person to a
turkey-cock, and sleepy, heavy
country wench to a COW; but it
would never do to apply the
| equivalents of cOT7licbO1l. dindO1 or
cache to French persons under pain
OF shocking the least fatidious hear
ers. Where we say in English that
man is an owl, the French say
(vulgarly( 6lGse (bustard), or huitre
(oyster); their term for a lOut is
cIiG1nedU (cameD, for a miser rat
(rat), for a person with spiteful
tongue teiglle (moth), for an obsti-
nate martinez cheUGE (hOrse), for a
silly woman H'aOtte (linnet), and for
an oaf Se1'i1l (canary).
On the other hand, the valorous
qualities of the rabbit meet with
more generous recognition in France
than in England, so that a French
soldier would say admiringly of a
cOmrade, "Cest IN rude Ldpin,"
meaning a most plucky fellow. The
French describe a spendthrift as
p01aie1' perez basket with hole in
it), a credulOus simpleton as gO6e-
naOuche Zone who gapes for fies)
buSy-bOdy, as q de1licheatr de nleTleS |
Zone who hunts for black birds), and |
a person more free in making unc- |
tuOus promises than in keeping
them as a dOnneu' Pedu beIaite de |
cOu' "a giver of holy water). A
young lady whose conduct leaves
something to be desired is said in
France to "throw her bonnet over
the windmill :" a cook who levies
undue perquisites on the money |
given her for marketing, faa ddrseT
PG'ase du pd,lie1 (makes the basket
handle Jump.
A sklnfiint is one one who would
"shear an egg" cut farthing into
four, or else one "Who does not tie
up his dogs with strings of sausages."
Where the English say that man
has feathered his nest, the French
say that he "has stuffed hay into
his boots ;" the rendering for a
cOck-and-bull story is a c0q-d-p0 011e
(cock and dunkey); and the Ameri-
canism to ''grizzle' is matched by
the term "Se .fdiTe Clot nldltUdiS sang"
Ito make bad blood). The young
Partisan dandified in his dress pro-
fesses to be "tire q q,tdtye epingIes"
(neat as new pin, as we should
say; and if he goes to wheedle
money out of his relatives on
fallaciOus pretences, this operation
is described as ''pulling up CARROT
(tireT Gt11e c0rOtte.
Watch a man waiting an hour in
the street for some one who has
failed to keep an appointment, he
is "beating the pavement" or,
"doing the cranes foot" .tdiSd9lt Le
pied de gT1te-an allusiOn to the long
posturing of this fowl on one FOOT;
if he be anxious and uncertain as to
the upshOt of some affair which he
has taken in hand, he has "his
beak in the water" (le beck dams
PeGaL. Are you impecunious ? The
vernacular for this is to be sin the
dregs" (d01as la deche). HOuseless
You are then lodging q Ld belle
etOiIe Cat the fine star inn). Din
nerless? ? You have in this case
"dined by heart" (diaae par cCe,a).
Are you one of those prudent per-
sons who like to carry favor with
both parties in dispute, or, as the
proverb has it, to keep one
eye on the fire and the other
up the chimney? The French
for this is naendger Ia cheUre ct Ee
chou Ito trim between the goat and
the cabbage). Let it be added that
the pawnbrOking institution known
in England as "my uncle's" is fa-
miliar to the French as "my