Re: Words of the day: "box" and "bolt"
| From: | Philippe Caquant <herodote92@...> |
|---|
| Date: | Friday, May 28, 2004, 19:38 |
|---|
You frighten me. Am I so old, or dead already ?
Anyway, I wasn't surprised to read this expression
under the "plume" of J.Cowan, so apparently I did hear
it before, although less usually than "une pipe".
I can't tell where. Maybe I read too many
San-Antonios, but I wouldn't bet it was there I found
it.
--- Christophe Grandsire
<christophe.grandsire@...> wrote:
> En réponse à jcowan@REUTERSHEALTH.COM :
>
>
> >There's a monograph named "(something) tailler un
> plume", the author of
> >which I forget. Gershom Legman printed an English
> translation of it in
> >his book _Oragenitalism_.
>
> How old is it? Because it's probably a dead
> expression. I've been pretty
> much everywhere in France, and *never* heard it. The
> "pipe" is the only
> expression I've heard.
>
___________________________________________________________________________
> En réponse à Philippe Caquant :
>
>
> >I heard "tailler une plume" too. The normal meaning
> >would be "to sharpen a pen". Maybe "une pipe" is
> more
> >common.
>
> Once again, you're proving to me that you speak a
> very archaic form of
> French. I never heard "tailler une plume" for
> whatever meaning you're
> saying. *Nobody* refers to a pen as a "plume" except
> in poetry and in the
> set phrase "nom de plume": "pseudonym".
>
> And yes, I may be definite about that, but I have
> the weight of experience
> listening to speech nearly everywhere in France.
> It's like the "PPH"
> expression we talked about a while ago. It *has*
> disappeared from French
> today, and there are surveys proving it.
>
> Christophe Grandsire.
>
>
http://rainbow.conlang.free.fr
>
> You need a straight mind to invent a twisted
> conlang.
>