Terms of Endearment

Gather ‘round boys and girls. Today I’m going to give you a French lesson. The topic – Terms of Endearment.

In French, as in any language, terms of endearment are part and parcel of the idiom. The thing is, in French they tend to be a touch strange, if not downright bizarre, at least when you actually think about them.

English terms of endearment tend to lean towards confections and anything sweet: Sweetheart, sugar, sweetiepie, honey, cupcake, muffin… we all know them, these saccharine overdose endearments. The English are obviously obsessed with food. Sweet food.

French endearments are somewhat more... um, varied. Off the top of my head:

You have your vegetable endearments. For instance when you call someone “mon chou” which translates as cabbage (Je t’aime mon chou…. I love you my cabbage)

Of course if you prefer, you can use are the animal endearments – “ma chouette” (my owl), “mon pitou” (my…dog – though in its defence it can also mean a stuffed toy).

Then, moving on you have your basic insectile endearments like “ma puce” – my flea. This one is often used for those little entities they call children. Come to think of it, they are a bit flea like, climbing all over you and annoying big people.

However, when endearments veer to the scatological things become truly very strange. By far the most over the top is that very widely used scatological endearment extraordinaire: “ma crotte” . Or in the Shakespearian tongue: My…. turd.

Class over mes crottes! Recess... Go out and play and practice your French!