While English usually borrows from French
pretty elegantly and fairly accurately,
the opposite is true
when French borrows from English.
An early example of wrong was Starter,
which is French for choke
(only cars as old as mine have them).
A recent example of the ridiculous
is Swiper* (the infinitive of a verb)
for which there is already Glisser.
There is no bon mot in French for cadge
(or fadge)
but the French for swipe-card,
is, I'm sorry to say, Badge.
* Probably not pronounced 'sveep-eh'.
No comments:
Post a Comment