My first Michelin experience

I keep saying to myself that the absence of posts for several weeks is due less to the absence of thoughts on all the matters linguistic than to my rather demanding job schedule that makes me inconveniently sleepy for the most of my free time.

Yesterday, however, I have experienced the first perks of this relatively new job, which sort of makes up for my somnambulic existence lately. For the first time, I ate at the Michelin-starred restaurant. In any restaurant, I normally read the menu thoroughly and many times before I make The Right Choice. I am not the type to look for typos, but I like to compare entries in different languages in order to get a better idea of what is on offer, particularly when choosing fish or figuring out about exotic berries. I would laugh in the process at an awkward translation or inappropriate use of a foreign word. (I still remember my amusement at discovering Crème Beau Rivage and cafe turistico americano.)

Yesterday, I was attracted by the dessert: Vacherin à la vanille eu au cassis, short and self-explanatory in French, translated and explained into a lengthy Layers of meringue, vanilla ice-cream and blackcurrant sorbet. I was puzzled about vacherin, which I knew was a French cheese, but its use as a synonym to meringue was unknown to me. It is the case, I checked today, apparently due to the similarity in shape between the cheese and the dessert, but I am not much convinced by this etymology. Any better explanations?

Latin for all

One evening, going home from the Institute, I picked up an old copy of Omnibus, magazine for teachers and students of Latin and Greek, to read after dinner. Omnibus is a curious word: being the dative plural of Latin omnis, all, everyone, literally it means 'for all'. By the way, the English bus derives, via French, from omnibus.

My acquaintance with the word comes not only from Latin lessons, but from a funny Latvian song about omnibuss that destroys kitchen gardens with all the vegetables -- I like the song but have no idea about its deep meaning. (The final double s in omnibuss is not a typo: in Latvian, all masculine nouns have to end on s, even if they are foreign borrowings that already have one s. In this case, you just add another s. For example, James Bond becomes Dzeimss Bonds.)

In my copy of Omnibus, a tiny article caught my attention. It contained excerpts from a Latin glossary, allegedly composed by Vatican authorities to help Latin speakers to cope with essential modern phenomena. I cannot help but reproduce some of its entries here. Lambrusco: acre vinum Aemilianum. Merlot: vinum rubrum Burdigalense. Sangria: potio mixta Hispanica. Scotch: vischium Scoticum. Vodka: valida potio Slavica. It made me smile, and think how an ordinary wine list becomes, by a mere fact of being translated into a different language, a source of laughter.

Deformation professionelle

I discovered blogs in spring 2006. More precisely, I discovered food blogs, which I was reading for months on end before realising that there existed blogs about things other than food. Anyway, the very first was Chocolate & Zucchini, which has remained a favourite ever since, for its recipes, its pictures, its design, its sense of purpose, its skillful marketing, and bien sur for the beautiful English of its author, Clotilde Dusoulier.

Last Tuesday, I had a chance to meet Clotidle en personne at the launch of her book at the French Institute in London. When I walked in, I saw the following picture: the publisher with a pile of volumes to sell; the author busy signing her books; technical guys fiddling with microphones; two tables with cakes and other edibles; and lots of rather lost-looking English people who did not quite know what to do. Were they allowed to taste the food? Was it appropriate to talk? Was it possible to talk in English? The worst of all, however, was the completely abandoned, unmanned tables with zucchini carpaccio, and slices of bread, and two savoury cakes, and some cheese biscuits, to which not many people were paying any attention at all.

Being an events organiser, this is a situation in which I cannot stand still: I walked in, went behind the table, and began offering the food and explaining about it. The food was delicious, I was having interesting conversations, and on the whole having wonderful time. 'Thank you so much for organising the event', someone said, assuming I was a part of the crew. 'Oh, not at all. I am just helping out', I replied. 'I am a professional events organiser, you see. ' 'What do you mean?' 'Well, I saw they needed some organisation, and I stepped in. Deformation professionelle.' I have no idea how to say it in English, though. It is such an un-English thing to do.

Boutique

I am always impressed when people who have known me only for a short time say something insightful about me. I warmed up to my once-boss, a super successful businessman from Russia, when he observed that I was more a boutique than a supermarket person. Not an obvious thing to say: I routinely buy all my basics in supermarkets, am known for my love for bargain, particularly two-for-the-price-of-one type, and find shops full of latest fashion and arrogant assistants unbearably boring. Something exclusive, specialised, trendy, expensive, and luxurious, particularly when used as an adjective - a boutique hotel or a boutique recruitment agency - is what the word boutique implies in English (and in the languages that have borrowed it from English, as in Russian butik.)

But in French, where the word comes from, it is a completely different story: boutique is just a small specialist shop. (On my first visit to France I was amused to find boutiques SNCF.) The word's etymology reveals its humble origins -- in Ancient Greek apotheke means storehouse, depository -- and its family connection. Spanish small shop bodega and Italian bottega, (one day, I hope to become a regular customer of one), are boutique's sisters, and Apotheke / apteka, drugstores in German and Russian, and certainly in other languages, are distant cousins.

In this meaning of a small useful shops, yes, I am a boutique girl. I prefer buying my supply of cheese from my favourite small shop. If it were in London, I am sure it would have been called Boutique Cheese Shop Le Fromage something, but as it is in Paris, this time, it is just a fromagerie.

Un peu ronde, gironde

I was reading the second book of Mireille Guiliano about French women and their art of living for pleasure when I come across this expression: un peu ronde, translated by the author as a tad overweight. Usually, I like the way she translates French concepts into English (she was trained in one of the best translating schools in Paris and had a career as a translator for international institutions before moving into corporate world). But this time, I was quite uncomfortable with the tad overweight. It was correct by any account, but whereas I would happily and routinely describe myself as un peu ronde, I would never identify with the English phrasing: it implies that something is wrong. But then I thought, how would I say it in English? Probably, I would be happiest with a bit round, the calque from French. Curvy is not bad, although it describes the outline rather than the shape. Curvacious, voluptious, and even juicy are all correct, but they appear to be rather emotional and intimate.

In French, however, I once learned another great word. Several years ago at a conference in Spoleto , in a mixed French and Italian company, the conversation turned to the Italian word formosa, meaning shapely and beautiful. (We were discussing Roman statues, let me reassure you.) A professor from Brussels mentioned that there was a good old French equivalent, gironde. Its etymology is uncertain (I have checked), but I still remember the definition given by the professor. 'Gironde, he said, 'come Sophia Loren in tutto il suo splendore!'

Peu ou prou

Last Saturday, I went to the French Institute to listen to Philippe Thureau-Dangin, editor of Courrier international. I have been reading Courrier international for years: I like the concept, I like the broad international coverage, the way it presents different points of view, and even its use of advertisements. I really like the rubric Le livre, which introduces new authors and new books, often from places far away from obvious.

And I admire its use of French. The translations -- most of its articles are translated from articles in journals and magazines around the world -- are not only flawless and idiomatic, but often improve on the original in terms of clarity, logic, and conciseness, which are, in my opinion, the essential characteristics of a good writing. Once I compared several of its translations with English originals (all taken from reputable sources like the Guardian and the Independent) and could not but admit the superior skill of the CI journalists.

In real talk, the editor-in-chief did not disappont, and I who is always looking for new expressions, wrote down several. Peu ou prou was one of these. It means a little or a lot, more or less. Its unusual part prou originates, via old French, I learned, from the late Latin prode, meaning profitable. It is curious that the same Latin word resulted, again via old French, in proud in English. If Anglo-Saxon pride is something that makes you tick (not me), you can read about its carnival of the etymologies here.

Aller aux asperges

Of all the expressions Alicia de Galicia sent me two days ago, I particularly liked irse freír espárragos. I like asparagus, and am intrigued how such a innocent activity performed upon a delicious vegetable that we see only for a few brief months in a year has evolved to have a negative meaning. You can read a discussion of the expression and its English equivalents, some of which mention frying, here, but I found no explanation of its origin.

I decided to investigate asparagus-related expressions in other languages. It is the asparagus season, after all, and the foodbloggueuses du mondre entier (to borrow an expression from Sigrid) are busy cooking asparagus and posting recipes.

I did not find anything in English, but asparagus is a foreign vegetable in the UK. It surprised me that I could not find anything in Italian. Ancient Romans ate asparagus, and, according to Suetonius, the Emperor Augustus liked to use the phrase celerius quam asparagi cocuntur, it was sooner done than asparagus is cooked.

But it is in French where the asparagus, due to its shape, has found a fertile ground. Aller aux asperges is used pour désigner la prise de fonctions d'une péripatéticienne, or to quote a reputable dictionary, chercher fortune sur le trottoir. My main discovery was a French site called Echolalistes, listing various lists, including La Liste des Asperges, listing a plethora of asparagine expressions. It also directs you, if you prefer, to the lists of other vegetables, but for the time being, I will stick with asparagus.