What if we spoke of love in other words?
"All foreigners will tell you: French is the language of love!"
, affirms Sylvie Brunet in the prologue to her book.
Just take a look at French literature.
It abounds in romance novels, inexhaustible subject which inspired so many authors.
An anthology of these few amorous formulas, to use this evening with your loved one of course!
Flirt
This one is timeless.
We cannot shun it, on this day when love is king.
The expression
“flourished in the 17th century, first spelled in the plural ('conter fleurettes')”,
and its charm is undeniable.
But the meaning calls out:
"isn't it absolutely surreal to tell about small flowers?"
, asks the author.
And yet, it is indeed in its literal sense that it is understood at the beginning.
The
“fleurette”
is also
“a gallant talk, a compliment, one of those thousand delicious little nothings”
which make up the delicate charm of romantic discourse.
Let us add that a naughty meaning is hidden behind this naive word,
“the flower suggesting virginity”
.
Don't we say
"to lose your flower"
, and
"to have your flower ravished"
?
Give the aubade
The formula applies to early risers!
The one whose melodious voice hears charming a beautiful in the early morning
"gives the
dawn
"
.
We know more about his late-
night
cousin who
“gives the serenade”
(from the Italian
sereneta
,
“serene night”).
Aubade
comes to us from the
“old Provencal 'albada'”, “aube”
.
Very romantic then.
This is without counting the 18th century and its libertine breath.
In his
Dictionnaire comique
(1715), Le Roux defined our formula as follows:
"In free and debauchery terms, also means kissing a woman, and doing to her what a husband does when he wakes up to his other half
".
Sow one's wild oats
At first glance, the love and medicine of animals has little to do with it.
And yet!
The
"wild oats"
, of Frankish origin and Sylvie Brunet points out, refers to the presence of
"nodes"
and
"flow of pus"
in the respiratory tract of young horses.
Have we seen anything more romantic?
We say that a foal
throws its strangles
in the sense of
"producing"
.
This is how our expression was born in the 16th century, in the sense of
"doing the follies of youth"
.
It was said that a young man
"threw his stranglehold"
when he had an
"unbridled sexuality"
, the
"strangle"
also designating the
"seed"
...
Dating with someone
“Look at this young rooster strutting”.
If in mythology, the rooster was
"the attribute of certain deities"
, it is no longer fashionable to be compared to him.
In the 17th century, we used to say
“coqueter”
to evoke someone who
“struts like a rooster in the midst of hens”
, who
“uses coquetry”
, and
“makes graces, smiles”
.
This verb is also synonymous with
"to chuckle"
,
"to chatter continually and often
indiscriminately to show off"
.
Kiss, kiss with tweezers
Is this a perverse torture?
Or is it a practice reserved for initiates of an obscure erotic brotherhood?
Nay, nothing more pure than this kiss!
Already in the 17th century, linguist Antoine Oudin defined it in
French Curiosities
(1640) as
“holding your chin while kissing”
.
The ancestor of our game
"I hold you, you hold me by the goatee"
, which children love so much!
In the 19th century, it designates the act of
"kissing (someone) by gently taking both cheeks with the fingertips"
.
The dictionary of the French Academy specifies that this type of kiss is
"one of the caresses to which children are accustomed"
.