Re: Words of the day: "box" and "bolt"
| From: | Christophe Grandsire <christophe.grandsire@...> |
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| Date: | Friday, May 28, 2004, 19:31 |
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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.
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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.
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