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Tim Walters - 2008-09-09 06:53:57
"Apotheosis" I knew. I thought I knew "embonpoint' but I was wrong, wrong, wrong. When I looked it up I recognized the meaning, though, so maybe I would have got it in context. "Levantine" I only know as meaning "from the Levant." "Guichet" I know from nothing.
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Bina - 2008-09-09 07:32:24
embonpont is the French (and twee British) way of saying your bosom.
Levantine means Middle eastern, right? A certain part of the Middle East, the Levant if I am not mistaken.
Guichet - a small opening in French, not sure what it means in English.
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MacGregor - 2008-09-09 12:42:29
Facebook has been weird lately. People have popped up amongst my friends that I have not added nor even seen requests from. A married friend has is relationship status and info changing nearly daily without touching it. Weird stuff afoot!
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Paula - 2008-09-09 12:59:47
The one that interested me most was "Levantine," because, yep, it basically means "from the Levant" but Tey was using it to convey this sense of dashing, romantic, but ultimately criminal emotionalism.
Not knowing what "levantine" meant, and stuck on a subway without ambient awareness or wiki, and knowing that Tey, writing in 1929, was fairly provincial, I assumed that she was just being racist. I wasn't so far off the mark.
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Mr Lojban - 2008-09-09 14:14:56
What's "criminal emotionalism"?
"Apotheosis" is one of those words I "know" but could not have defined if asked. "Guichet" is used in French, I think, for a ticket window (among other senses), and is the same word as "wicket", except that the former is from Old French and the latter Old Norman. I think of the Levant as referring basically to what is now Syria, Lebanon, Israel, Palestine, and Jordan, but maybe it's bigger than that.
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Paula - 2008-09-09 14:31:00
What's "criminal emotionalism"?
You know, getting all het up and killing someone.
"Guichet"...ticket window
A-ha! That's what it means in this book, now I get it. Thank you!
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grigorss - 2008-09-09 15:48:55
P. -- thanks for defining the term "criminal emotionalism", as I had previously assumed that it simply referred to whatever John Mayer had most recently recorded...
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Paula - 2008-09-09 16:05:04
Honk!
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Priggish Bob - 2008-09-09 18:47:26
What's with all the vaginal rejuvenation and bosoms and small openings... some of us are trying to think pure thoughts here, ya know? Though guichet, if that has ever meant "that" to anybody, certainly isn't as jarring as the c-word. Speaking of which (and who was?), I recently found myself - after running into the office at the skatepark to take Heart Attack's "English Cunts" off the sound system (cuz an unknown parent had just shown up) - explaining to a young employee's girlfriend that at least the English never seem to use that term on women. (Nor did Heart Attack seem to use it that way, but instead on American punks trying to look English.) But still not a term the French would use, though to be fair, the Brits' use on guys often borders on being a term of endearment... but still implying a problematic fellow. But the English do at least kind of get a free pass to make their own way, since they supposedly aren't into sex. Unlike us soggy-headed Americans.
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MacGregor - 2008-09-09 20:42:12
Embonpoint Chequere?
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Bob - 2008-09-10 01:41:58
(Which is why Americans, and the French, and Brazilians are more neurotic about sex than the Brits.) But speaking of non-Franglo words, poor Joe Biden... he's the only one of our four candidates of whom it could be said, figuratively, regarding "Apotheosis": "It's all Greek to him...".
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Bob - 2008-09-10 02:00:28
Aargh, now I have this terrible vision of a feeble modern rap act named "Sister Souljaboy" singing "My gweeshay, my gweeshay, my gweeshay" ad infinitum.
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Bina - 2008-09-10 02:29:04
Dude, it's pronounced "geeshey" (hard G). The French most certainly do NOT use that word for that part of the female anatomy that we seem to be discussing here. Their word for it is the exact French translation of a word that is popular in the United States... not beginning with C.
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Bob - 2008-09-10 02:37:57
I dare you to tell that to Sister Souljaboy.
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Bob - 2008-09-10 02:46:04
And no wonder they don't use it... that pronunciation WOULDN'T sound better. But that's why I prefer (non-Castillian, anyway) Spanish; it's more consistent, with fewer dictated-by-inbred-royalty pronunciations. Semi-kidding aside, I really do much prefer the sound of the Haitian language, even though French is its base.
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Bob - 2008-09-10 03:13:59
And hey, for all I know, Haitians do use that word for "that", and pronounce it the way I like. (And maybe the great Tokyo Ska Paradise Orchestra are referring to that Haitian practice - instead of mispronouncing a Specials/PrinceBuster line - when they sing "they say they're [sounds like 'luder'] than you"....)
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Bob - 2008-09-10 03:31:16
And of course Tokyo Ska Paradise Orchestra are as real as Sister Souljaboy isn't... and actually everybody should google: Tokyo Ska Paradise Orchestra Skaravan Youtube... to see perhaps the most enthusiatic - and cooperative - live audience for a band ever. Which could (believe it or not) make putting up with my blather worthwhile.
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+ 1 - 2008-09-10 04:00:08
And Bina, it occurs to me that intense, purposeful homogeneity can make for the one country stranger than America: Japan.
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an\' a two - 2008-09-10 05:04:44
Though I guess it did take an initially unwelcome infusion of American diversity to make it go bonkers.
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grigorss - 2008-09-10 05:33:44
Judging from their pre-war cinematic output, the Japanese were well on their way to complete "bonkers"-hood long before any Americans showed up.
Certainly their current movie offerings would indicate as much...
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