I am very new to french, so don’t understand why a bonne femme (which sounds like ‘good woman’ to me!) is a bad thing? Can you enlighten me? Also, when you get a minute, and felt like having a glance at my blog here: http://artsafantasy.blogspot.co.uk/2013/10/another-day-in-paris-part-2.html
that would be lovely, as I wrote it with you in mind. xx
Rosemary Kneipp
October 25th, 2013 at 10:33 am
Hi Jane, I’ve added an explanation of why “bonne femme” is not a good thing to the post since you are no doubt not the only person who’s wondering! I hope it’s a little clearer. Thank you for asking!
And thank you for the lovely mention on your post. How long are you in Paris? We are currently in Blois but will be there next week in which case we could catch up.
“Une belle plante” is a good-looking woman and it puts the accent on her body, not on her pretty face. Usually I’d associate with an hour-glass figure or a bigger bust.
“Gonzesse” is slang for “bonne femme”, with the same implications.
thank you so muxh for this discussion, i can put in my two cents worth if you like: Bonne femme refers to women who are NOT bourgeois/noble, usually with no diplome, and work with their hands. It implies more than just a woman with “character”. For example, Angela Merkel or Christine Largarde are women with some characters (otherwise they would not have made it where they are now), but NO ONE would refer to them as “bonne femme”. It is similar to a “fishwife”. “nana” is derogatory or – at its mildest sense- disrespectful. It comes from the character in Zola’ book “Nana”. When one says “cet nana”, it is similar to “what’s-her-name”. Anti-sarkozists used to call his then girlfriend carla bruni “his Nana” (“his squeeze”) before they got married. Sounds very backwards and feudal…non? learning french is fun.
Cheers,
I guess this would be reflected in other words, and why we find that some people deem a word to have negative connotations whilst others do not agree with this interpretation.
Rosemary Kneipp
October 26th, 2013 at 9:10 pm
I’ve never thought that veillarde had negative connotations except insofar as being old is negative! But it would be more polite to say vieille dame (and not vieille femme).
where there are two terms to use and the speaker chooses one over the other, there is a social connotation to it. One can perfectly uses “une femme agee” or “une dame agee” instead of “une vieillarde”. At my kids’ school, use of “vieillarde” is prohibited as it is deemed impolite (i.e. kids should show respect to all adults). “Negative” is maybe too strong. One could say that this type of expressions shows “disrespect” (intentional or not) on the part of the speaker to the subject described.
hi, all french words end with “-ard” have a negative connation: clochard (vagrant), “bagnard”(prisoner), “fetard”(party animal), “”barvard” (chatterbox), “trouillard”(scardy cat), etc.
I didn’t know that either. Whilst there may be many examples of French words with the suffix -ard that have negative connotations, I don’t find the following negative: canard, brouillard, routard, savoyard.
Hello, in words like “brouillard, “canard”, “-ard” is not a suffix so these words dont come into this category. “Savoyard” is not a chic expression. Parisiens call the residents in the suburbs surrounding Paris “banlieusards”. Suburbs are called “banlieue”. The word “Routard” was invented in 1972 by the founder of a hippie magazine, M. Bizot, who later fonded “guide de routard”. It referred to a traveler with little or money. See also “montaignard” as members of a political party (social democ supporting peasants, etc). French language is still very “pariscentric”, isn’t it?
Rosemary Kneipp
October 28th, 2013 at 6:14 pm
The adjective from Savoie was originally savoisien, but at the end of the 18th century savoyard was used for labourers from Savoie who came down into the valleys to do seasonal work such as chimney sweeping. It thus came to mean someone who was dirty and uneducated. On the other hand, montagnard was used as early as 1510 to designate people from the mountains and was perfectly neutral. The political connotation of montagnard comes from the time of the French Revolution when the left-wing members of the legislative assembly of 1791 were called Montagnards (forming the Montagne group) while the more moderate ones took the name of Plaine or Marais. Routard was indeed coined by the founder of the Guide du Routard and only applied to trukkies after that. So, it would seem that only the original meaning of montagnard doesn’t fit the negative theory of the suffix “ard”!
Negative is fine in English. “Pejorative”, although it exists, is very formal and quite a lot of people may not be familiar with it. You’d be more likely to use “derogatory” in fact.
Gonzesse is dialect/slang but not necessarily negative at all!
In Bordeaux we say un gonze/une gonzesse, and for a kid we use un drĂ´le/une drĂ´lesse we have a lot of words that are slowly disappearing… I love them so much, they are our heritage… The language spoken in Bordeaux is called “le bordeluche” (from the name of an inhabitant of Bordeaux: “un bordeluche”) of course it’s mainly french but with some “specific” terms. It’s the language “of the people”, the one they say you should not use, but it is so charming, so telling… It’s our history too! http://blogjournalisme.free.fr/imprimatur/spip.php?article362
Rosemary Kneipp
January 31st, 2014 at 3:30 pm
Hi Patrick, yes, I was surprised you didn’t comment at the time! Thank you for your comment. I didn’t know the term “bordeluche” even though I spent a year in Pau and met quite a lot of people from Bordeaux. I thought they were called “bordelais”. I didn’t realise that drĂ´le and drĂ´lesse were still used either.
I am very new to french, so don’t understand why a bonne femme (which sounds like ‘good woman’ to me!) is a bad thing? Can you enlighten me? Also, when you get a minute, and felt like having a glance at my blog here:
http://artsafantasy.blogspot.co.uk/2013/10/another-day-in-paris-part-2.html
that would be lovely, as I wrote it with you in mind. xx
Hi Jane, I’ve added an explanation of why “bonne femme” is not a good thing to the post since you are no doubt not the only person who’s wondering! I hope it’s a little clearer. Thank you for asking!
And thank you for the lovely mention on your post. How long are you in Paris? We are currently in Blois but will be there next week in which case we could catch up.
Unfortunately we’re back now and had the most awesome time, I can’t wait to go again, which should be around May sometime, so maybe then?
Hope to see you in May then!
Oh, complex matter!
Ok, first: it’s not nanette, but nĂ©nette. 🙂
“Bonne femme” is not necessarily derogatory, but most of the time it somehow is. It implies a loud, obnoxious woman. I would probably often translate it as “that woman”. La bonne femme de la boulangerie – that woman at the bakery.
But “c’est une sacrĂ©e bonne femme” can also be very admirative: “that’s some woman you have there!” “une sacrĂ©e bonne femme” is someone who as done something admirable. Or, something huge in the negative sense (but in my opinion it is more positive).
“sa bonne femme” would be “his old lady”.
“Nana” is a term from the 1980s. “Une nana” is a girl, a chick, a woman. It’s not derogatory at all. “NĂ©nette” is a derivative and is used by some people just like “nana”. I would classify it as “langage familier”, but not really as slang (in German, I would call it “Umgangssprache”). I (46) use “nana”, my sister-in-law (49) uses “nĂ©nette” all the time.
“Une belle plante” is a good-looking woman and it puts the accent on her body, not on her pretty face. Usually I’d associate with an hour-glass figure or a bigger bust.
“Gonzesse” is slang for “bonne femme”, with the same implications.
Thank you, Pat, for your comments. I’ve corrected nĂ©nette (oh dear!) and added a phrase about sacrĂ©e bonne femme and belle plante.
Btw, I have thought a bit more about “gonzesse”. I’ve never heard “gonzesse” for prostitute or for a woman who is easily fooled. I know it as a slang word for “woman”, mostly said by men aged 30-60. “Ah, les gonzesses, toutes les mĂŞmes…”, “c’est bien une idĂ©e de gonzesse, ça”. These sentences could also be used with “bonne femme”.
And “les lettres de noblesse” of the word “gonzesse” were given by Renaud:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2oul3rBYxiQ
(how incredibly young he looks in that video…)
And for kitsch and cult, here Patrick Bruel’s first big hit, in 1984: Marre de cette nana-lĂ …
thank you so muxh for this discussion, i can put in my two cents worth if you like: Bonne femme refers to women who are NOT bourgeois/noble, usually with no diplome, and work with their hands. It implies more than just a woman with “character”. For example, Angela Merkel or Christine Largarde are women with some characters (otherwise they would not have made it where they are now), but NO ONE would refer to them as “bonne femme”. It is similar to a “fishwife”. “nana” is derogatory or – at its mildest sense- disrespectful. It comes from the character in Zola’ book “Nana”. When one says “cet nana”, it is similar to “what’s-her-name”. Anti-sarkozists used to call his then girlfriend carla bruni “his Nana” (“his squeeze”) before they got married. Sounds very backwards and feudal…non? learning french is fun.
Cheers,
One of the other terms I have heard is vieillarde .
I had a look at the Larousse dictionary as I have found that some French friends have suggested that it is pejorative whilst others disagree. Interestingly Larousse advises that this negative nuance is not necessarily the case these days.
Vieillarde n.f. = femme marquĂ©e par le grand âge, est littĂ©raire et pĂ©joratif : « Une vieillarde hideuse qui tient une horrible auberge » (V. Hugo). La nuance pĂ©jorative est absente chez beaucoup d’auteurs contemporains : « Mme Vincent et deux autres vieillardes dont je ne sais plus le nom » (A. Gide).
Dans le registre courant, c’est vieille qui tient lieu d’Ă©quivalent fĂ©minin Ă vieillard : « Pourriez-vous me dire pourquoi il y a de beaux vieillards et point de belles vieilles » (Diderot).
I guess this would be reflected in other words, and why we find that some people deem a word to have negative connotations whilst others do not agree with this interpretation.
I’ve never thought that veillarde had negative connotations except insofar as being old is negative! But it would be more polite to say vieille dame (and not vieille femme).
where there are two terms to use and the speaker chooses one over the other, there is a social connotation to it. One can perfectly uses “une femme agee” or “une dame agee” instead of “une vieillarde”. At my kids’ school, use of “vieillarde” is prohibited as it is deemed impolite (i.e. kids should show respect to all adults). “Negative” is maybe too strong. One could say that this type of expressions shows “disrespect” (intentional or not) on the part of the speaker to the subject described.
I’ve been having a look at my Robert Dictionnaire historique de la langue française now that I’m back in Paris and have access to all my books! Vieillard dates back to 1190 vieillart 1155) and initially meant a very old person. The term was used collectively in law and administration (1833) to mean persons over the age of 64. Today, it has been replaced by personnes âgĂ©es and, more recently, troisième âge (and now seniors, but that’s my note). For a long time, vieille was the feminine of vieillard. The derivative vieillarde (1788, FĂ©raud) was initially not derogatory, but became more so (1847), after which it was used as the feminine of vieillard.
So it has has a somewhat chequered existence!
It’s interesting that the use of a word is actually prohibited, but it is important, of course, for children to learn not to use disrespectful terms.
hi, all french words end with “-ard” have a negative connation: clochard (vagrant), “bagnard”(prisoner), “fetard”(party animal), “”barvard” (chatterbox), “trouillard”(scardy cat), etc.
Thank you, Angela, I didn’t know that!
I didn’t know that either. Whilst there may be many examples of French words with the suffix -ard that have negative connotations, I don’t find the following negative: canard, brouillard, routard, savoyard.
Hello, in words like “brouillard, “canard”, “-ard” is not a suffix so these words dont come into this category. “Savoyard” is not a chic expression. Parisiens call the residents in the suburbs surrounding Paris “banlieusards”. Suburbs are called “banlieue”. The word “Routard” was invented in 1972 by the founder of a hippie magazine, M. Bizot, who later fonded “guide de routard”. It referred to a traveler with little or money. See also “montaignard” as members of a political party (social democ supporting peasants, etc). French language is still very “pariscentric”, isn’t it?
The adjective from Savoie was originally savoisien, but at the end of the 18th century savoyard was used for labourers from Savoie who came down into the valleys to do seasonal work such as chimney sweeping. It thus came to mean someone who was dirty and uneducated. On the other hand, montagnard was used as early as 1510 to designate people from the mountains and was perfectly neutral. The political connotation of montagnard comes from the time of the French Revolution when the left-wing members of the legislative assembly of 1791 were called Montagnards (forming the Montagne group) while the more moderate ones took the name of Plaine or Marais. Routard was indeed coined by the founder of the Guide du Routard and only applied to trukkies after that. So, it would seem that only the original meaning of montagnard doesn’t fit the negative theory of the suffix “ard”!
http://www.etudes-litteraires.com/suffixes.php sorry, the correct term is “pejorative” rather than “negative”.
Negative is fine in English. “Pejorative”, although it exists, is very formal and quite a lot of people may not be familiar with it. You’d be more likely to use “derogatory” in fact.
Excellent list!
Hi Rosemary, there is always something nice to read here! (I don’t how I could have missed that one!) Very interesting post, plenty of very good replies!
I find strange that none of readers mentioned the link between bonhomme et bonne femme….
None of them is negative per se… but I agree with you that usually people wouldn’t like to be called bonhomme/bonne femme… unless there is something “added” to change the meaning.
– Quel sacrĂ© bonhomme / bonne femme -> nice to hear!
– Quel drĂ´le de bonhomme / BF ——> well no so nice!
– C’est qui ce bonhomme / BG ———–> not nice at all!
Gonzesse is dialect/slang but not necessarily negative at all!
In Bordeaux we say un gonze/une gonzesse, and for a kid we use un drĂ´le/une drĂ´lesse we have a lot of words that are slowly disappearing… I love them so much, they are our heritage… The language spoken in Bordeaux is called “le bordeluche” (from the name of an inhabitant of Bordeaux: “un bordeluche”) of course it’s mainly french but with some “specific” terms. It’s the language “of the people”, the one they say you should not use, but it is so charming, so telling… It’s our history too!
http://blogjournalisme.free.fr/imprimatur/spip.php?article362
Hi Patrick, yes, I was surprised you didn’t comment at the time! Thank you for your comment. I didn’t know the term “bordeluche” even though I spent a year in Pau and met quite a lot of people from Bordeaux. I thought they were called “bordelais”. I didn’t realise that drĂ´le and drĂ´lesse were still used either.
You’re right bordelais is the proper name to use… “Bordeluche” is the popular term the “bordelais” use amongt them in this “bordeluche language”.