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I led workshops at the British Library2003-2019, on literature, language, art, history, and the culture of the book; and now teach the the English language at educational institutions, particularly the Bishopsgate Institute, online and in-person. I research language usage during the First World War, and lead the Languages and the First World War project. Author of Discovering Words, Discovering Words in the Kitchen, Evolving English Explored, Team Talk - sporting words & their origins, Trench Talk - the Language of the First World War (with Peter Doyle); How to Cure the Plague; The Finishing Touch; and Words and the First World War; Tommy French. As an artist I work in printmaking, performance, public engagement, curating and intervention; and I lead museum tours.

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Tuesday 23 June 2015

More words adopted into French from English 1914-18



Following on from Albert Dauzat’s collection of words adopted into French during the Great War, here are some collected by Eric Partridge (from Words, Words, Words!’ 1933):

Pouloper: to gallop, from the English ‘pull up’, so a complete reversal of meaning in the course of the transfer.
Bath: in the phrase ‘c’est bath’, from the fashionable reputation of Bath, so meaning ‘great’, or as Partridge puts it ‘It’s tip-top’. Allied to this is ‘c’est palace’, meaning the same, and appearing in the phrase ‘nous allons être palaces’ = ‘we’re in for a cushy time’.
Sops: planes, from Sopwith, cf ‘taube’ for German planes.
Finish: meaning ‘there’s no more’, so presumably adopted as a mirror of the anglicisation ‘finee’.
Strafer: taken from the British adoption of the German strafen, so a bounced on adoption.
Coltar: wine (coal tar).
Afnaf: ‘either not too well pleased, or satisfied, or else exhausted. Wonderfully imitative of the cockney “’arf ’n ’arf”.
Olrède: say it with a French accent, and it comes out ‘alright’.
Lorry: with the plural ‘lorrys’.

Partridge does not give his sources, which is sad, but presumably he was transcribing ‘afnaf’ and ‘olrède’ from speech. The Académie Française would have had a fit.

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