It is a fond memory.
Or dread, depending on whether one was a good student or what was once called a
"bad subject"
.
School is a small world, which was our daily life from the start of kindergarten.
The school world has little to do with that of a few years ago.
The language spoken there has taken on a few wrinkles today.
At a time when most notebooks are withdrawing, replaced by computers,
Le Figaro invites
you to (re) discover these (almost) forgotten words.
"READ ALSO - Jean Pruvost:" The history of words is part of the philosophy of each era "
● The "chalk"
The shrill noise she echoed on the board caused chills.
The
"chalk"
trona in classrooms for decades.
It has almost entirely disappeared, replaced by boards for veleda markers, or computer screens.
It comes from the Latin
creta
, which meant
"chalk or white clays"
, informs the Treasury of the French language.
In the 12th century, she called herself a
“believer”
, as Chrétien de Troyes wrote in
Chevalier Lion.
● A "pawn"
"Here is the pawn!"
It was not a good omen to hear this phrase spoken in a nervous voice.
Where does this funny word come from, which evokes the
“pawn”
of a game?
Before being a supervisor, he is the one
"who has big feet"
, notes the dictionary.
From the low Latin
pedo, pedonis
, the
“pawn”
then took on the meaning, in medieval Latin, of
“pedestrian, infantryman”
.
In the 16th century, he designated a
"poor man"
, and entered school slang in 1833 to designate the supervisor of the schools.
Baudelaire, for example, used this word in one of his letters.
● A “schoolboy” student
This nickname was hardly flattering.
“Nobody without experience, naive”
, this is the meaning of the word today. But did you know that originally, a
"schoolboy"
was in colloquial terms a
"college student, a high school student, an internal student"
? Jean Pruvost, linguist and author of
The school and its words: how it was before the deconfinements
(Honoré Champion, 2021) traces the two possible origins of this word. He could have been born of
"pot-à-chien"
, this high round hat and
"rather ugly"
that the boarders wore, and become by abbreviation:
"schoolboy"
. It is also likely that the word comes from a pun with
"soup".
: the residents having the right to the drink, they would have become
"vegetable gardeners"
, then
"schoolboys"
.
The CNRTL notes that
“schoolboy”
could be an offensive reduction of
“pot-à-chien”
, to name
“a foolish student”
.
● The "courtyard"
This place where we line up, holding hands before entering class, has a funny etymological story.
In
the 12th century, the
“courtyard”
was a
“small meadow”
, according to the TLFi.
He then
calls
himself
prael
and also designates a
"small space surrounded by buildings, a courtyard"
.
Henri Pourrat writes in this sense in
Gaspard des montagne
:
"And it is in a real thatched-roof cottage, in the middle of a courtyard of apple trees that our stranger settled down"
.
● Make a ruckus
"Stop your heckling
or you'll be held in detention
!"
Beware of the warning, the punishment was not far off.
At the time of its appearance in French, the
"heckling"
, this state of excitement which takes hold of the students frantically, does not yet designate a
"great din, a noise"
.
In the 19th century, it was a
"disheveled dance"
, we read in the dictionary.
A few years later, it becomes
"a noise"
, then a
"demonstration against an authority"
.
