tom shields Embracing French lingo
There is now an official word in France for French kissing. Au secours, mon Robert. I say help ma Boab because this mot officiel is contained in the new edition of the Le Petit Robert dictionary.
There already are plenty of French words for kissing: embrasser, which is a form of greeting; bécoter, to smooch; and baiser, which is problematic and goes way beyond a kiss.
French kissing is a concept brought back from France after the First World War by Allied soldiers. Probably something they learned during a bit of parlez-vous with a mademoiselle from Armentieres.
I am no expert on kissing. Tam Cowan, wit and bon vivant of Radio Scotland and the tabloid press, once reported, after a brief encounter at a Partick Thistle match, that I was a nice enough bloke but a terrible kisser. I wasn't worried because Tam used to say that about all the boys.
Anyway, French kissing I assumed involved garlic or ripe cheese. Turns out it has to do with tongues. So it is probably forbidden for us Catholics, even within marriage.
If I had known, I could have spiced up my visits to confession: "Bless me Father, for I have sinned. Stole two chocolate biscuits and did a fair bit of French kissing."
To get back to the topic of the day, the word in Le Wee Boaby dictionary for French kissing is galocher. It used to be slang but is now mainstream. Galoche is the derivation of our own much revered galoshes or rubber overshoes.
The French connection between galoche and soggy kiss is obvious. Think safe sex, think fluids, think galoshes.
Learning French (the language – not the kissing) was the great passion of my school days. Once I got over difficulties with the translation of the first text in the grammar book. Using the dictionary I was able to work out that la salle a manger was "the room at to eat". It was only when I turned the page to the word list I found out it meant dining room.
We didn't have a dining room in our house but I guessed the salle a manger was like a smaller version of the school dinner hall. If I'd had an auntie I could have told her that her pen was on her husband's table.
Le Petit Robert will come in handy for brossant up my French. It has new words like chelou (weird), kéké (show-off) and low-cost (Ryanair).
I would say I plan to pratiquer la langue but that might lead to French kissing. So I'll just study the idiome.
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