I thought mince was what most people used as a substitute for merde, in the same way you would say ‘sugar’ instead of ‘shit’ in English. Curiously enough, these substitute words are called minced oaths in English. I don’t know if there is a connection to the secondary French use of the word mince or not. Of course, the pronounciation is different.
Rosemary Kneipp
August 2nd, 2013 at 10:07 am
Ah, I had forgotten about mince, but it’s not the same as sugar. I checked my Robert’s Histoire de la Langue Française. It seems that “mince” is part of a longer expression. “L’interjection ‘mince! zut! merde!’ procède probablement de l’argot ‘mince que’ (1878), qui correspond à ‘un peu que’, puis ‘mince de’ (et nom) par antiphrase ‘beaucoup, bien de’ (1881). Mais l’évolution n’est pas claire.” And neither is the explanation.
I’m going to put “sugar” in my text instead of “shite”.
You’re very welcome! BTW, info is always singular in English because it’s a collective noun. Now that could be the subject of a post: words that are singuular in one language and plural in the other.
I thought mince was what most people used as a substitute for merde, in the same way you would say ‘sugar’ instead of ‘shit’ in English. Curiously enough, these substitute words are called minced oaths in English. I don’t know if there is a connection to the secondary French use of the word mince or not. Of course, the pronounciation is different.
Ah, I had forgotten about mince, but it’s not the same as sugar. I checked my Robert’s Histoire de la Langue Française. It seems that “mince” is part of a longer expression. “L’interjection ‘mince! zut! merde!’ procède probablement de l’argot ‘mince que’ (1878), qui correspond à ‘un peu que’, puis ‘mince de’ (et nom) par antiphrase ‘beaucoup, bien de’ (1881). Mais l’évolution n’est pas claire.” And neither is the explanation.
I’m going to put “sugar” in my text instead of “shite”.
I like the Copper / Cyanide Oxide explanation to why Green’s unlucky. FUN post, thank you both Rosemary and Wikipedia!
Yes, the cyanide’s amazing, isn’t it?
Intersting, thank you for these infos!
You’re very welcome! BTW, info is always singular in English because it’s a collective noun. Now that could be the subject of a post: words that are singuular in one language and plural in the other.