(Post not recommended for readers squeamish about bodily functions.)
I am no fan of barnyard language or scatological humor, but the use of the French verb "peter" --to fart (accent "aigu" over the first 'e', which I can't insert here) has been puzzling me for some time.
The French use the verb in colloquial speech all the time. Each time I have heard it used, I get the sense of it from the expression on the face of the speaker, although I've been puzzled by how a bodily function that most people in the English-speaking world try to avoid mentioning can have such a prominent place in the minds of our friends from l'Hexagone.
Of course, the English-speaking world had no equivalent to Le Petomane. Le Petomane was a famous musical hall star, "particularly celebrated for his remarkable mastery of his abdominal muscles, which allowed him to spurt gas at will" ("particulièrement célèbre pour sa remarquable maîtrise de ses muscles abdominaux qui lui permettait de lâcher des gaz à volonté") as his entry in Wikipedia tells us. Born in Marseille in 1857 he lived until 1945, dying in nearby Toulon, the connection between his remarkable skill and his longevity never having been firmly established.
A glance at reverso.net, the online dictionary, reveals that "peter le feu" means "to be in top form". Which, pace le Petomane (one of whose tricks it was), means literally, "to fart fire".
Another use of the verb "peter" links it with the word for panic, trouille, becoming "peter le trouille", "to be scared to death".
Peter des flammes, means something has turned nasty, while peter plus haut que son cul, means to think too highly of oneself. And peter dans la sole, a fishy reference, means "to be rolling in money", The possibilites of peter seem inexhaustible, the logic inventive.
The etymology of the word suggests that its origins may be related to another word in French, petard. Petard means "explosive", or, "firecracker". That would make peter something closer to "to go off with a bang", although none of the translations of the English phrase into contemporary French use the verb.
--So much for sanitizing peter.
Walking to the grocery store last week, standing in front of her bed and breakfast (which the French call a gite), I come across Francine, the mother of one of my friends in Caunes. A very formal, serious woman in her eighties, she lives with her husband in a house built flush against the old walls of Caunes, with a back garden and a shed put to agricultural purposes when the area was more rural.
Francine compliments me on the color of my lipstick and observes that I look younger this year than last. She asks whether I've changed my hair color, or is my apparent youthfulness due to something else? I reply that last year, when I was setting up the house, was stressful, whereas this year I'm able to relax.
Hearing me, she replies, Peut-etre! Mais cette année tu petes!
--Well, if she says so.
No comments:
Post a Comment