New French Vocabulary for the New Year

2007's very first French Vocab of the Day (and perhaps relevant to some of you) is the French word for hangover, "gueule de bois", which literally means, "mouth of wood."

We rang in the New Year with some friends in Paris and it was a lot of fun. Fortunately, the Metro was open (and free!) all night long, so it wasn't a problem to stay out late. Happy 2007 to everybody. Amongst the many amusing conversations I muddled my way through in my mangled French, I picked up a funny expression from a guy talking about a rugby game during which one player got tackled by another one and "il a volé comme un crepe"--("he flew like a crepe"). I enjoyed the vivid imagery of this very French simile.

One last interesting word to begin the New Year: the French word for dirty joke, which is "une histoire cochonne", translated literally as "a piggish story."