Une bourde monumentale même

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Permalink Reply by Frank on September 28, 2009 at 9:03am

Hi Une,

Une bourde is a blooper.

And "monumental(e)" means huge, "as huge as a monument".

And in this case, it really was. People rushed to order TVs but it was too good to be true and nobody actually received one.

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Permalink Reply by Une on September 28, 2009 at 9:12am

Merci, Frank. Ah, so it means a huge blunder. Babel Fish gave me "boob" for "bourde". So why is the word "même" necessary?

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Permalink Reply by Frank on September 28, 2009 at 9:18am

"Boob"? Lol, Babelfish is way of base, "bourde" doesn't have that meaning at all.

Ths word "même" isn't really necessary. In this context, it just means "said in another way".

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Permalink Reply by Neil Coffey on September 28, 2009 at 9:46am

Just to refine the translation slightly, a possibility would be "You could say ...", "Indeed, you could say...".

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Permalink Reply by Une on September 28, 2009 at 11:05am

Great, thanks.

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Permalink Reply by Neil Coffey on September 28, 2009 at 9:44am

I think "blunder" is better, but "boob" can be a synonym for "blunder".

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Permalink Reply by Frank on September 28, 2009 at 9:46am

Oh, good to know, thanks Neil.

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Permalink Reply by Une on September 28, 2009 at 9:58am

Got you Neil. Yes, just double checked my English dictionary and to my surprise, boob also means gaffe, ignorant and foolish person. So I guess that's where the booby trap comes from.

Before this, I LOL too (so Frank, you are not alone.)

Would you say the word "même" here is short for "quand même"?

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Permalink Reply by Frank on September 28, 2009 at 10:27am

Would you say the word "même" here is short for "quand même"?

I don't think "même" ever replaces "quand même".

"quand même" rather means "anyhow", "though", "nevertheless", "still".

This is quite different from "même" which also has a couple of other meanings, including the one described above, but also "same" ("le même"), "even" ("même les patates ont des yeux") and "very" ("cette voiture même").

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Permalink Reply by Une on September 28, 2009 at 11:08am

Excellent. I learn quite a lot out of this. Many thanks.

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Permalink Reply by Pamela Kingfisher on September 28, 2009 at 1:05pm

I am surprised to hear boob used as an error. Here in the states it means one thing: Breast!
Booboo....a nickname for a little person, as in, we call our daughter"BooBoo"
or a booboo means a little cut or scrape, a very minor injury treatable with a bandaide.
Boob can mean, the person is an idiot, but this is an outdated use.
Pam

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Permalink Reply by Frank on September 28, 2009 at 1:19pm

Indeed, according to my dict, it's a britishism.

Yet another word like "fag", that has a totally different meaning in BE and AE.

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