'Howling' like a dog is one way to express shock or surprise

A French neighbour – actually, perhaps we are friends now, though exactly when the former becomes the latter in France, I’m not sure – was recently recounting the time she was given an awful fright by her painter (peintre) while she was out watering her garden one summer morning in her nightdress (chemise de nuit).

It sounds like the implausible preamble to a racy Carry On or Confessions of a... film scene but was actually rather more innocent.

The battery in her doorbell (sonnette) had died (no, not another innuendo) and so, when the amiable artisan came calling, he could not make himself heard at the front gate (portail). So he let himself in, slipped around the side path and was greeted by a banshee-like howl from the startled voisine, who initially presumed that the imposing artisan was an intruder.

“J’ai poussé un hurlement énorme”, she recalled (I let out a huge scream). “Je croyais que c’était un ogre !” (I thought it was an ogre!).

Needless to say, the painter was pretty embarrassed and offered his apologies.

For the purposes of this article, however, what struck me about her tale was the use and origin of the word hurlement.

The Académie française describes it thus: “Le hurlement d’un chacal, d’un chien. Un hurlement de douleur, de terreur. Pousser des hurlements de rage.” (The howl of a jackal, of a dog. A howl of pain, of terror. To let out howls of rage.)

The word stems from the verb hurler, from Late Latin ūrulare, meaning ‘to howl’, referring to dogs and wolves and, as the painter is now well aware, gardeners.