My best French teacher at the moment is the cost, in the village, of the English daily papers.
The London Times come in at about €3.25, or nearly €20 a week, so as a consequence it is not a daily purchase but an occasional one.
I am then thrown on the Midi-Libre for the news, and from there come my French lessons.
Almost inevitably, within fifteen minutes out has to come our Robert French Dictionary.
Take this morning’s headline.
Le préfecture du Gard coiffe encore le bonnet d’âne
Literally:
The governing body of the Gard (department) again style the hair of the ass’s bonnet.
Out comes Robert.
First the asses bonnet, this means quite simply a dunces cap.
Okay, so now we know that the Prefecture of the Gard intend to style, again. a dunce’s cap.
Back to Robert.
Coiffer means not only to style hair but also to don any form of headgear.
So then all is clear;
The Gard prefecture have again put on the Dunce’s Cap.
This is because of the departments in the area, it takes them longest to produce certain documents.
For example 28 days to produce a Driving Licence compared to the Lozere who have it the following day, 12 days for a passport compared to the Aveyrons 1 and 11 days to produce a national identity card compared to a mere 1.7 in the Landes.
I don’t know , the poor old Gard don’t seem too bad to me, but then I was reared in a hard slow school.
A fascinating little bit of trivia happened when I started to look of the meanings of Coiffer in Robert.
The following sentence occured:
Elle allait bientôt coiffait sainte Catherine
This seems to mean that she will soon have crowned Saint Catherine.
But (of course) it doesn’t.
In fact it means: (says Robert)
She would soon be 25 and still unmarried.
Now I am still unsure of how they come to this conclusion.
My guess is that as Saint Catherine achieved her sainthood for (as well as becoming the role model for a firework) being a very adamant virgin.
Could it be that the French in their wisdom have decided that a girl 25 and still a virgin is never going to lose that distinction ?
Seems a harsh judgment to me.
As I said at the begining it is amazing what the the papers can teach you.
Comments
martine
on November 5, 2009there is an explanation in english at :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catherinette
bye
Martin
on November 5, 2009Thank you so much Martine.
Now it all makes sense.
Here is the piece from Wikipedia.
Catherinettes was a traditional French label for girls of twenty-five years old who were still unmarried by the Feast of Saint Catherine (25th November). A special celebration was offered to them on this day, while everyone wished them a fast end to their singlehood.
Since the Middle Ages, girls were under the protection of St Catherine (while Saint Nicolas cared for the boys). Girls participated in devotion groups to the saint, and were responsible for the confection of a beautiful headdress to “cap” her statue each year on November 25. The young women left the group when marrying, hence “capping Saint Catherine” became, for a female, synonymous to “being still single at/after 25”. Following the changes of women’s and marriage’s status in society, this custom progressively died all over France, with the exception of the hatmaking and dressmaking trades, wherein unmarried women, after they turned twenty-five, would attend a ball on St Catherine’s Day in a hat made specially for the occasion; to wear such a hat was referred to as “capping St. Catherine” (coiffer sainte Catherine).
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