Re: Etymology


Tone wrote:
> I have just finished a translation of Mont Oriol by Guy de Maupassant.
> In it the words "parbleu" and "sacrebleu" are used frequently and were
> not translated for some reason.
>
> I found out that literally these mean:
>
> Parbleu - by blue
> Sacrebleu - Sacred blue
>
> and by context it is obvious that these are mild explatives.
>
> Can anyone give me more specifics on the etymology of this?

Those were old swearing words for as far as the Middle Age, IIRC.
Parbleu is contracted form of "par le sang bleu" (or "palsambleu"),
sang bleu or blue blood being noble blood. Thus, parbleu is a swear
word like "by jove", if you will, while sacrebleu could be more
adequately conveyed by "Holy Christ" (or "Holy something") if you want
to retain the "sacre" part. Note that "sacre" doesn't mean exactly
sacred, "sacré", in this context ; sacrer can mean elevate or
consacrate, as in "sacrer un roi" ("to sacre someone king" ?), but also
means swearing (old term ; hardly used anymore). Some other words you
could encounter in the same context are morbleu !, which really means
mort-bleu (literally death blue, same explanation as above) ; and the
alternate south-western forms pardiou !, sacrediou !, mordiou !, that
substitute "diou" ("Dieu", God) for "bleu".

Hope that helps.

Frenchy

.

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