Although the language has far fewer words than English, French phrases can be wonderfully expressive. Take Nostalgie de la boue, for example, Nostalgia for depravity and debauchery - a common thought, at least for me anyway (boue = mud or the gutter). The term appears in Tom Wolfe’s 1987 novel Bonfire of the Vanities. Or how about Il n’y a que les imbéciles qui ne changent pas d’avis, Fools never change their minds. Yeah, I’m looking at you, Jim Jeffreys, assuming you have a mind to change. In corporate life, I learnt a useful term in Paris, Il faut bien faire mais il ne faut pas trop bien faire, We must do well, but we must not do too well. Anybody who’s had a boss knows the concept. But there’s one term that above all that reveals the Gallic mind.
© 2024 John Oliver
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