Talk:List of French phrases

Separating proper nouns from expressions

Does anyone think that we should separate the proper nouns from the expressions? Should the Champ Elysées be on the same page as "bonjour"? 140.180.7.120 15:36, 7 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

No, I don't think they should be now. The article is still a reasonable size, and having it all in one alphabetical article makes it easy to search. WLD 17:15, 7 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Punctuation

Is there a reason a space is given between many words and their exclamation point or question mark? Crana 00:56, 24 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Contrary to English, French always includes a space between the last word and the exclamation point or question mark.

It's a typographical convention. Such rules vary between countries. Note that it is a non break space (so that punctuation remains attached to the previous word), except with m-dash (when used as parenthesis). The width of this space may vary, depending on the punctuation sign. You will find such a space before ";", "!", ":", and "?" ; as well as after "«", and before "»".

Paté de foie gras ?

Quote:

foie gras: fatty liver; usually the liver of overfed geese, hence: pâté de foie gras, pâté made from goose liver

As far as I know (and I'm french), there is no such thing as pâté de foie gras. There is pâté de foie (liver pâté, usually made of pork) and foie gras (normally goose, sometimes duck). Processed foie gras (made with leftovers of foie gras entiers, whole Livers) is not called paté de foie gras, but bloc de foie gras. Foie gras is normally good enough to be eaten "as is". There may be recipes to make pâté with foie gras, but that would be a shame... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 194.146.51.249 (talk) 14:58, 7 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

/ chacun à son goût

It's incorrect with the accent on the "a". I removed it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.234.180.194 (talk) 12:03, 12 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Sacre bleu

I always heard the story that this phrase originated with the blue color associated with the virgin mary (blue & white)... I find this more believable than the current explanation. Redshield3 21:50, 14 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Descartes

Descartes' Cogito ergo sum theory was originally printed in French as "Je pense donc je suis". At least that what the page for cogito ergo sum says. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 164.107.219.76 (talk) 18:31, 16 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

le zinc

Is this really well-known in the English language? I'm not denying it's good French, but is it really used by English-speakers? DJ Clayworth (talk) 19:18, 2 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]