Lifting

Lifting London

Now and again there's time to read a little French. And as I cut my way through the jungle of half-understood expressions, something that is a great relief is to find old friends - words the French have lifted from English . Each one is a little encouragement: fewer new words to learn, and the sense that, in any case, French is moving closer to English.

But, there's a twist. The words don't always mean what we're used to them meaning in English.

One of the things they've been lifting is the word lifting itself. I've just come across it in the French/English Toulouse Airport magazine, InToulouse, in a piece to encourage visitors to London. Here's the actual French text:

"Sur les bords de la Tamise, tout bouge en permanence, à l’image du lifting architectural qui dynamise depuis quelques années la capitale anglaise."

Yes, lifting. The translation is:

"On the banks of the Thames, everything is in constant movement, like the new and exciting architecture which has boomed in Britain’s capital in recent years."

Doesn't that word lifting just jump out at you? Google translate says that in French it meas a face-lift, which I guess fits, what with the Shard going up and, no doubt, lots of other buildings too.

Why didn't the French just take the actual English word, face-lift? I guess it wasn't quite English enough. It had to be Englished up a bit more by adding that -ing ending. There we are, a properly English word that's had its own relooking, its own lifting

pressing

Listening to Le Grand Entretien I've just discovered Bernard Cerquiglini  and his great snippets-of-linguistics program Merci Professeur.

He explains things about the French languagge - where the word merci come from, why there are circumflexes on some words (hâte, pâte...), all manner of things.

And he touches on some anglicisms too. For instance pressing. A word that you might get as an adjective in English ("I have a more pressing engagement.") or as a verb ("We were pressing flowers.") but hardly ever as a noun ("From the first pressing of the olives").

In French it means a dry cleaner's. See Google Translate:

Here's Bernard Cerquiglini on the subject:

gaming

gaming avec le Bbox

Open rentrée

Greenwashing

We get a lot of greenwashing in our marketing, whether it's for shampooing or buildings...

 

On veut du green green green green green green washing

On veut des tours d’avion, des airbus, du diesel
Des mandarines toutes les saisons, des grands voyages dans le ciel
Du high tech à la maison, de la nouvelle technologie
On veut pouvoir dire pardon et soulager son esprit

On veut d’la viande d’Argentine, d’la bidoche à tous les repas
De la world food dans la cuisine, on veut du sucre, on veut du gras
On veut moins cher, on veut meilleur, on veut toujours un peu d’ailleurs
On veut la mer, on veut l’été même en hiver on veut bronzer

Refrain

On veut du green green green green green green washing
C’est nous les as, les pinocchios du marketing
On veut du green green green green green green washing

On cache les galets sous le sable, on veut des plages de sable blanc
Du réseau pour nos portables, on voudrait quatre barres tout le temps
Des orgies raisonnables, des grands échangeurs de béton
Et des amis toujours joignables, on veut des baleines et du thon

Refrain

On veut de l’eau toujours qui coule et des rides un peu moins creusées
On veut de la jeunesse en poudre et puis de la neige en été
Des grands buildings sous le soleil, des monuments pharaoniques
On veut partout partout pareil, de la wifi, du numérique

On veut du green green green green green green washing
C’est nous les as, les pinocchios du marketing
On veut du green green green green green green washing
On veut du green green green green green green washing

On veut des lessives sans phosphates, des shampoings tout organiques
Et des forêts pour nos 4x4, du charbon dans nos cosmétiques
Des slogans abusifs, plus blanc que blanc, plus vert que vert
Mascarade écologique pendant qu’on s’shoote au nucléaire

On veut du green green green green green green washing
On veut du green green green green green green washing
On veut pouvoir dire pardon et soulager son esprit
On veut du green green green green green green washing
On veut la mer, on veut l’été même en hiver on veut bronzer
On veut du green green green green green green washing
On veut des baleines et du thon
On veut du green green green green green green washing
C’est nous les as
On veut du green green green green green green washing

Strangers- it's now!

You have to give it to them: the French do try. To make us English feel at home, that is. The way they use English and Englishy-sounding words so that the French language isn't too much of a shock.

Thinking about the ongoing storage problem in our house, I turned to Ikea Toulouse. There's work going on there, apparently, and they've closed off some parts of the store. I was astonished to read that "Un relooking spectaculaire du libre service marché" was one of the developments - a makeover for the self-service market. A relooking?!? Where did that one come from?

I guess it's the newest member of that small family of -ing words that have been put into French for us.

It started with a parking - what we in Britain would call a car park. As French wikipedia says: "Le mot parking n'a pas ce sens dans la langue anglaise et constitue donc un faux anglicisme." Yes, don't be pedantic, I know that parking came from the French parc, and I've also  read that before that it was the word for an enclosure or fence.

Shampooing is a strange one. As an Englishman, my first understanding of the word shampoo is as product, the stuff you get in the bottle .(Although it does come, via an interesting history, from the Hindi word for a massage, chāmpo, चाँपो) Like parking, it seems like the action has become the thing in French. It has the added twist of a strange pronunciation, just to keep us on our toes: shompwung.

Along the same lines, in the forest there is a Parcours Footing. Footing?!? I think it means jogging -  "de l’anglais foot avec suffixe -ing, et pourtant pure création française."

And then last of all - for now - meeting. This has the same meaning as in English. But the puzzle is why it's used all the time, when there is the perfectly good word réunion??

So, thank you for the gesture, France. I am  looking forward to meeting new members of the family to appear. Or should that be relooking forward?