-
Festive French phrases and words for the Christmas period
Joyeux Noël tout le monde - your vocabulary guide to get you through the festive season
-
Learning French: what does j’avoue mean and when should it be used?
A French language tic which can indicate you are actively listening to and agree with what is being said
-
Language: Beware ‘false friends’ but take heart - the French struggle with them too
A teacher recounts the struggles of his Francophone colleague with English
À la noix: a French expression you may hear today
Mayor of Paris and presidential candidate Anne Hidalgo has been accused of making ‘walnut promises’ about teachers’ pay. We look at what this means...
Mayor of Paris and presidential candidate Anne Hidalgo has pledged to double teachers’
salaries within the next five years if she is elected as president - but , teachers are reportedly worried that she is making “promesses à la noix”.
When something is ‘à la noix’ (walnut), it is worthless. You may also hear the longer version of this idiom, ‘à la noix de coco’ (coconut), be used.
The origins of this date to the 14th century, when nuts were viewed as a fruit of minimal value.
It is sometimes said that the expression is a distortion of ‘cresson alénois’ (garden cress), which was often added to salads. Its pungent and bitter taste gave it negative connotations, which were inherited by the term ‘à la noix’.
Paired with the common view of nuts as dull, unexciting fruit, the expression adopted the meaning of ‘worthless’.
However, the phrase itself was popularised at the end of the 19th century. This is sometimes attributed to French singer and writer Aristide Bruant.
Curiously, ‘nuts’ is also an expression used in American English to express distaste, disbelief or disgust (as in, ‘That’s nuts’, or simply ‘Nuts to you!’).
One notable example of this being used dates back to the Battle of the Bulge in Ardennes in 1944, whcn German officers requested that the Allied army surrender. The American brigadier general sent a letter back, signed but containing only one word: ‘NUTS!’
This is now interpreted as ‘go to hell’ and the one-word expression is popular today.
Related stories
‘En avoir ras-le-bol’ - A French expression you may hear today
Les flics and what's a '22' alert got to do with the police?