In our monthly French language column, intrepid Douglas Campbell scours the media and tracks down Finkielkraut, English-style apposition and Jason Bourne .

Je fais mon Finkielkraut - "littéralement". And yet I quote NTM.

As I heard someone say on the radio yesterday, "je fais mon Finkielkraut", that's to say I'm going to do a little old-fogeyish state-of-the-language Canute-style complaining about the language, and about both languages, too. "Littéralement" gets (mis-)used in the same way in French as "literally" does in English. Complaining about it is essentially pointless: "c'est l'usage qui l'emporte". However, it can be fun noticing examples of surreal and mad images conjured up by the use of "littéralement" as though it were nothing more than "really", "very much" or "greatly"...

Before "la défaite" – yes, of course, from the journalists' lexicon of cliché, "la défaite cuisante du 15 de France" – rugby was increasingly popular even in football-mad towns. Hence the comment, on France Info, saying that "les écoles de rugby sont littéralement submergées", which surely would make it more like water-polo than rugby.

My current favourite of this type was on the France Culture press review, on 3 October, when it was said of an American politician that "il avait en face de lui des démocrates qui l'ont passé littéralement sur le gril". So, in a sense, he was quite literally in the hot seat. Another one from a recent Nouvel Obs interview about the link between diet and cancer (27 October issue, p.9): "la demande de viande bovine et de produits laitiers a littéralement explosé".

When does it seem justified in the press? Perhaps in this report about the Gaza Strip ("la bande de Gaza") in Le Monde : "tout le monde attend sans savoir ce que l'avenir réserve à ce confetti rectangulaire de 360 km² peuplé de 1,5 million d'habitants. Une des plus fortes densités au monde, 1,5 million de personnes qui depuis plus de quatre mois sont littéralement séquestrées dans ce réduit". In this context, describing Palestinians as being literally "illegally confined/detained" seems quite appropriate. Reminds me of that great howl of rage from 1995, ten years before "les émeutes de 2005", when NTM cried "personne n'est séquestré, mais c'est tout comme". That was in their...literally incendiary rap, "Qu'est-ce qu'on attend pour foutre le feu".

Returning to a lighter tone, I do always enjoy "j'étais littéralement scotché" every bit as much as I do "I was literally rooted to the spot / glued to my seat". Any more examples of mad images conjured up by "littéralement" gratefully received and passed on.
 

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English-style apposition on the rise

In two minutes on Canal+ I noticed several examples of English-style use of two nouns in apposition without an intervening "de", an increasingly common feature in journalistic French: "il y a quelques réglages son à faire" and "les invités sont-ils payés pour venir sur les plateaux télé?".

The day before, in a TF1 report on the SNCF strikes, there was mention of "le réseau banlieue". In the guitar world, when they don't go ahead and shamelessly talk about "un trémolo" or "un trémolo arm", you will hear or read "une tige vibrato" at least as often as you meet "une tige de vibrato". Interesting difference in image there also, in that in English it's a tremolo "arm", but "une tige" – a stem – in French.

More and more recently-coined terms are built English-style : "une taxe carbone, un plan sécurité, les tests ADN" and many more all the time. Having heard "le réseau banlieue", I am beginning to wonder how long it will be before the "de" vanishes in "revue de presse" and "escalier de service". Combine that tendency with false anglicisms or determinedly non-English use of English terms, changing the part of speech in the way teenagers did with the French word "grave" and you get (as on TV5 news, after the Sarkozy divorce became "officiel" rather than "officieux") "le couple se veut glamour" and "une investiture glamour". Translate the borrowed English noun with the adjective "glamorous". Trendy or journalistic French just loves nouns: "le nom, c'est tout ce qu'il y a de plus tendance..." Sorry.
 

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Recently-heard or read neologisms

A colleague claims to have seen on Swiss TV "la cheffe", with a double "f" and a final "e". Also, when Laporte was being held responsible for the defeat at the rugby world cup, somebody spoke of "la footballisation du rugby".

A couple of days ago I heard (France Inter, Press review, 23 October) "la société française se smicardise". I'm certain that I've heard or read it before ; dated examples coming up. I first heard "un smicard" for someone earning the minimum wage (le SMIC) years and years ago, and I have not yet googled "smicardiser", but it's a perfectly acceptable neologism, cleverly concise, and it meets a need.

More and more people are on the minimum wage, it's happening, so it's normal that a verb should be developed for it, and you can bet that "la smicardisation" exists, too, for "the tendency for more and more workers to be on the minimum wage". Libération may well have got there first, in a piece about lawyers being paid via legal aid, with a comment about "l'augmentation de l'aide juridictionnelle (AJ) dont la faiblesse actuelle plombe les comptes des cabinets implantés dans les zones populaires et 'smicardise' les défenseurs de la cause de pauvres". That was in December 2000. As for "la smicardisation", there are examples in Le Monde as early as 1997. As with "smicardise" in Libération, they are generally "entre guillemets".

Sans transition...

To finish on a lighter note, "now for something completely different". Given how many film titles are simply not translated at all, I was delighted to see that the titles of the three box-office smashes of the "Bourne" trilogy were given translations which held together as a threesome, did not just ape the American, and actually told you something about the films.

The Bourne Identity becomes La mémoire dans la peau. He has been brainwashed and manipulated in some way, his very being interfered with.

The Bourne Supremacy becomes La mort dans la peau. He kills people.

And the French for The Bourne Ultimatum is La vengeance dans la peau. He gets his revenge. The only one I've seen; like being trapped inside a very noisy video game.
 
Dougal Campbell, French language tutor at Glasgow University
 
 
Please contact the author with any comments and similar amuse-gueule snippets of French, at D.Campbell@french.arts.gla.ac.uk

[Copyright Chambers Harrap Publishers Ltd 2007]