A World Compliment Day?
What an idea!
Like it takes a day to praise the people we love.
This is what the most verbose among us will think.
The fiercest will jump at the opportunity to dare (this is not an innate thing!) To compliment those around them.
Let's face it: deep down we all need those little words that warm our hearts as surely as a rum baba after a dreary day at work.
If the
"nice"
,
"beautiful"
,
"brilliant"
,
"fabulous"
,
"fantastic"
are timeless always effective,
Le Figaro
has selected for you some obsolete compliments which will undoubtedly have their little effect!
● You are as beautiful as a merfolk
We can bet that the woman to whom you address these words will not slam the door in your face, thinking that you are mistaking her for someone else.
It would be a shame!
“Water genius”
,
“nymph with beautiful blond braids”
,
“naiad”
... The metaphors that spin this pretty word are flattering to say the least.
The undine, whose name is borrowed from
"the wave"
, is a lovely young woman in Germanic and Scandinavian mythology.
Sometimes called a
“nix”
, she dazzles with her long blonde hair, which she combs carefully, sitting at the edge of a fountain.
It is said that his tears would be the source of water for then and fountains.
So do not run away if you are called that!
"Verdine, Ondine, and Bordine with eyes towards"
... Ronsard himself made a verse of it ...
● You enlighten me like a coruscant light
From the Latin
coruscans
, itself borrowed from the verb
coruscare,
it means
"to shine, to sparkle, to make lightning"
.
If you are qualified as such, know that you radiate a thousand fires, like this fiery pyre that does not burn.
We want you to understand that you are nothing less than a
"brilliant, brilliant" person.
.
Someone, in short, whom we could not do without to sublimate a dreary everyday life.
● You are a real host
Borrowed from the name of a King of Mycenae and Thebes, this word with incense flavors comes to us from the language of Aristotle.
The amphitryon was then a
“Theban chief, the mortal father of Heracles”
.
Let us recall that the latter
"was the only hero honored in the whole of the Greek world, and the only human being granted immortality among the gods"
, notes the Larousse.
The word is used little by little in a
"proverbial way, to express the one who gives food or who pays for several a certain expense."
As the thesaurus underlines, it is Molière
"who, without thinking about it, was the author of this word"
.
In his eponymous play, he
"makes Sosie say that the real Amphitryon (of the two intervening in the play) is the one with whom we dine"
.
A host, which has become a common name, has since become the host who receives his guests generously and at his own expense.
● You are a speech bubble for me
The compliment is as tasty to hear as it is to say.
Born from the ancient Greek
phulaktêrios
, which means
“amulet”
, and
“to keep, preserve”
, the word designated in Greco-Roman Antiquity a
“talisman that one wore on oneself”
.
The
"phylactery"
is therefore what protects you, brings you luck.
Woe to those who part with them ...
In the Jewish religion, it was also a
"small piece of skin or parchment that the Jews attached to the arm or the forehead, and on which were written passages of Scripture"
, underlines the Littré.
Christians use it to designate the
“shrine containing the relics of a saint”
.
A bit fatal, certainly, but aren't the saints extraordinary people?