Re: Terms of Endearment

En réponse à Douglas Koller, Latin & French :


>The infamous "mon (petit) chou", which usually gets translated as "my
>(little) cabbage", though I think "cream puff" is more a propos.
It's indeed the correct translation, and you can lengthen "mon petit chou"
by saying "mon petit chou à la crème" ;)) .

>  "Ma
>puce", "my flea", has a nice diminutive tone to it.
Yep :)) .

>  Back in college,
>one French guy used to call his main squeeze "my bloody witch" (ma
>sorcière sanglante?) in English. Dunno if that was his own little
>idiosyncracy or if that's a popular endearment -- Christophe?
It was his own idiosyncracy. Although as I said, it's quite common in
French to use mild insults as terms of endearment. Also, terms of
endearment are productive in French, which may explain why French is
considered by so many to be the language of love. Nearly any expression can
be turned into a term of endearment given the right tone and context (I've
heard things like "mon petit geyser d'amour", and an expression like "mon
petit moteur à combustion interne à dix bougies et 25 bielles" *can* be a
term of endearment for some people ;)))) .


>"Je t'aime" is "I love you"; "Je t'aime bien" or "Je t'aime beaucoup"
>is "I like you".
"Je t'aime beaucoup" is "I love you very much", not "I like you".


>French does have the word "plaire", though its usage is not as
>extensive as "gustar".
Rather than not as extensive, it's different, and more sexual when
referring to people. Hence the rarer use.

Christophe Grandsire.

http://rainbow.conlang.free.fr

You need a straight mind to invent a twisted conlang.