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Song lyrics by Joe Dassin and George Brassens
Hi...i often have questions about songs I'm listening to...often French slang. Is this the best place for these questions or can someone recommend a good place to ask? Here's one, anyway: In the song La Bande a Bonnot (lyrics here http://www.lyricsmania.com/la_bande_a_bonnot_lyrics_joe_dassin.html)...what are the hirondelles referred to? Presumably not swallows?
And can anyone recommend a good french-english slang dictionary...ideally online? Many thanks. Alice.
And can anyone recommend a good french-english slang dictionary...ideally online? Many thanks. Alice.
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Benoît on -
In fifties slang vocabulary "Hirondelles" means "Gendarmes" (also used : "Hirondelles de potence").
So within "Sur les routes de France, hirondelles et gendarmes", Joe Dassin used a "poetic redundancy"...
I just found this website (in French): http://argot.abaabaa.com/
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EducatorPermalink Reply by stu harris on -
I was delighted to see that link because I sometimes need help with current slang. However, abaabaa is useless. It finds no translations for:
déconner
glander
meuf
teuf
Those words are all in common daily use among young people.
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Permalink Reply by Neil Coffey on
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Alice -- You can certainly ask here, and I and others will do our best to answer.
hirondelle, incidentally, used to be a slang word for a police officer on a bicycle. As far as I'm aware, it's not really used any more.
Feel free to compile a list of problematic slang words here and we'll do our best -- I would even consider adding to the site's French dictionary those that aren't already there. (The dictionary does already include a number of slang words, but it's more focussed on slang that is currently in use rather than older terms; but including older terms used in popular songs would definitely be an inclusion criterion I would consider.)
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Permalink Reply by Alice Marvell on
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Neil and Benoît - just what I was looking for! Many thanks :)
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Permalink Reply by Benoît on
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Stu, in fact I think there's a slight difference between "argot" and "gros mot".(By "gros mots" or "mots grossiers", I mean words that are considered as rude. I don't know if it's the definition of "slang")
Words in "argot" are not always rude.
In this exemple "hirondelles" is clearly not rude even if it's clearly a mark of disrespect.
By the way "déconner" and "glander" are rude (even if I've to confess I use these words very often)
"Déconner": to screw up, to mess up.
"Déconne pas avec moi !": Don't mess up with me!
"Sans déconner !": No kidding !
"Glander" (or "glandouiller"): to do nothing, wasting time doing nothing...
"Meuf" and "Teuf" are what we call "verlan":
"Meuf" = "femme"
"Matte la meuf !": Look at this women! (implying she's hot)
"Teuf" = "Fête"
"à donf" = "à fond"
"Sans déconner ! J'suis à donf pour aller glander à la teuf, juste à matter les meufs..."
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EducatorPermalink Reply by stu harris on -
Merci, Benoit. I didn't know that word verlan -- others reading this may not realise that these words are approximate syllable reversals:
fem-me > me - fe > meuf (It's very disrespectful, the equivalent of chick)
fê- te > te - fe > teuf
I think there's also keuf, a VERY approximate reversal of flic -- am I right?
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Think you mean keuf, which indeed comes from flic.
One thing that's interesting linguistically about verlan is that verlanisation often follows some quite specific rules, which help to give an indication/support our theory of the workings of the French sound system.
(For example, chier gives ièche-- note the vowel change-- which supports the notion that the é vowel can't occur in closed syllables-- the change to è when the syllable is closed is automatic.)
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EducatorPermalink Reply by stu harris on -
keuf, of course -- I fixed it. If you have time Neil, I'd be interested to learn a few other examples.
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On the definition of "slang", there are various ways of viewing what "slang" refers to. At its base, it is usually taken to refer to language that would only be used by some subset of speakers, as a means of maintaining solidarity between the group that use it, or possibly for excluding others. In addition, "slang" would usually be understood to refer to non-standard language, as opposed to, say, a word which is dialectal, but widely used by speakers who speak that dialect.
In the dictionary I (and indeed other lexicographers) effectively end up treating "slang" as a level of formality. If you like, I'm saying "this word is of a level of informality that a notable number of speakers would avoid using it and those who do use it create a sense of solidarity/exclusion". There are obviously problems with this in reality, but it more or less works.
From this point of view, slang words aren't necessarily gros mots as such (indeed, most of them aren't). This matter is obviously complex, because how "vulgar" or offensive you perceive a word depends to some extent on your propensity to use/hear that word and possibly to how offensive you find the phenomenon it alludes to.
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Permalink Reply by Benoît on
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One more website (in french) : http://www.dictionnairedelazone.fr/
You will find "déconner", "glander" and many others in rubric "Lexique".
You also have access to a rubric "Verlan".
Funny fact: verlan of verlan ("Feukeu" verlan of "Keuf" already verlan of "flic" which is already a slang word for "policier").
By the way, when you deal with them never call police officers "feukeu", "keuf" or "flic"...
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Incidentally, such words are also generally in this site's dictionary. I've added a couple that were mentioned here that weren't in. Suggestions for other words are always welcome, including slang words.
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