Those damn confusing Middle French words will screw you up every single time.
Duvet – (origin Middle French) noun
1. a usually down-filled quilt, often with a removable cover; comforter.
Bidet- (origin Middle French) noun
1. a low, basinlike bathroom fixture, usually with spigots, used for bathing the genital and perineal areas.
(Source)
In getting ready to go on a trip, my wife dictated a list of items we needed to do/get. One of them was to clean the comforter. So in my list I wrote, “Clean Duvet”. She hadn’t ever used the term duvet and thought I had thrown a joke in the list and when I questioned her, she said pretty much what the cartoon implies.
Ever been confused by similar sounding words/phrases? Be out of touch for the next couple weeks (or minimal) so talk amongst yourselves.
Comments
24 responses to “Damn Confusing French Words”
Bwahahahahahahaha. Wait till you get a lot older and this will happen often. Then there is the long pauses trying to find the word you’re looking for.
Have a great trip. 🙂
Uh oh…I think I am already there
Bwahaha! I run into this all the time. Being a native French-speaking Texan confuses my friends here, especially since I only know enough Spanish to get myself in trouble.
How do you become a native French Texan?
That would explain how it got so dirty.
Definitely
I just avoid all big words and hard to pronounce crap. (Excuse my french)
Good strategy
A dinner guest told me over the phone that she was bringing that friggin nut cake. What she actually said was Fig & Nut Cake. 😉
Bet you made a place for another person haha
I may confuse a lot of words, but never those two for some reason.
that which you call a ‘comforter’ and the French (and the English, too) call a ‘duvet’ – Scots call a ‘downie’
[‘downie’ was just one of many scottish words I dropped from my vocabulary in favour of the English alternative when I moved to England so the natives would understand what I saying]
Downy is a laundry softener in the US
I have a friend who is trying to be a photographer. She keeps on using the term “money shot” as way to say the picture is capturing a good moment. I tried to explain to her where that term came from but she insists on using it.
Depends on what kind of photography she does haha
Such confusion. Why don’t the French just speak English like the rest of us???
Why don’t the English speak English like the rest of us
So true. I used to work with a bloke from Liverpool & half the time I had no idea what he was saying
The fact that they have a room just for the toilet and a separate one for the sink is mind blowing.
Trust me after coming back from Europe most of them don’t have room for the toilet either
hahaha Bidet/Duvet Tomato/tomahtoe
Thx EJ
Mispronunciation is probably my biggest speaking problem. The French language waste too many letters too. For example does “Versailles” need the two ‘l’s or the ending ‘s’?
Versigh would be better