(Swimmingly)by Julia FreyDo you swim like a monkey wrench? In France it’s synonymous with holidays, for August is vacation month, and gives us words for the two pests of the season, (chiggers) and (August vacationers). When it’s 36ºC (97 in the shade) on the Côte d’Azur, I avoid both (literally, wounds—unbearable people or things) by heading to the neighborhood (from Latin : fishpond: swimming pool). There I’m in my element—. Backstroking in the deliciously cool water, I gaze up at the sun sparkling through the needles of the huge (Aleppo pines) towering overhead. These native cling tenaciously to the dry (chalky soil) of our Mediterranean hillsides. Today the air around them is heavy with the fragrance of vaporizing resin and shrill with (cicadas).Sated, I plop down dripping near our (master swimmer, i.e., lifeguard). Although I have trouble remembering how to say lifeguard, I have no trouble remembering his name, which is Djellel (he’s of Tunisian descent), because he gave me (trick, gimmick). “” he said to me, “” Think KFC: I’ve got the wing, and you have the thigh.Miky and Yves arrive and set up their (deck chairs, originally designed for —ocean liners). My seagoing neighbors usually prefer (the beach) at (a seacoast town), but today they have (literally gone out to sea—escaped, given it a wide berth) for the pool. (jellyfish). Second only to (arsonists) who set the tragic forest fires that periodically beset the region, the thing people in the Midi fear most is . Even a stray tentacle can give you a lesion that will destroy your summer.Although my friends are (sweating like pigs—a misnomer, since pigs, apparently, don’t sweat), they seem to have some doubts about the pool. “” (Is the water good?), they ask suspiciously. Why does everybody always ask that? At first I didn’t have a clue what the question meant. Is the water clean? Cool? Drinkable? Finally a local informed me that it means “Is the water warm enough?” Southerners are (cold-sensitive and/or hesitant) and don’t like to go in until it’s at least 20ºC (68ºF). Of course, if the water is too warm, ""Miky and Yves love to feed me new expressions. “” (I swim like an iron), announces Miky. “And I,” adds Yves, “swim like ” (a monkey wrench). Djailèle and I both laugh. “Did you know only 30 percent of words in French are really French?” he volunteers. “The rest come from Latin, English, German…”(Who knows?). Well, that’s not news—virtually all words in most languages come from somewhere else. In fact the French language only really began to be codified in the Renaissance. Seventy percent of words in English, I point out, are similar or identical to French words. Which doesn’t keep us from having trouble understanding each other.“” I remark to Miky, who has a beautiful tan, year-round. Her husband cackles, “” “It’s fool the idiot??” ( = to deceive; —from —means .) Literal translation has tripped me up once again, but my friends are delighted to explain. Generically, means makeup, and in this instance, sunless tanning lotion—what historically, and sometimes today, is called “Man-Tan” in English. In other words, Miky’s tan is fake!This gives Yves a pretext to launch into a detailed explication of the word . For beginners, in the south of France, is not considered vulgar or an insult. A is just a guy, or affectionately, a dummy. Paradoxically, it has a feminine form: . He adds another expression: (sucker catcher) which means a scam. Like when you receive a letter telling you that you have won which you will get…if you send a small to a firm in the Cayman Islands.Now Yves is on a roll. “,” he declaims, totally out of context. Again I try literal translation: “There’s nothing like good rotgut (literally: something to make a sucker drunk) to add some taste.” But it doesn’t make much sense to me. “” (literally: “a back-fart” -- spoonerism) he chortles. Dutifully I invert the syllables, and come up with a cooking truism: “Rien de tel qu’un bon court-bouillon (broth made with vegetables and herbs) ” , preferably obscene, are so beloved by the French that , a political satire weekly, publishes a column called Sur l’Album de la Comtesse devoted to them!But back to . Since this for makeup literally means to deceive the unwary, implicit in the expression is that one can “make up,” i.e., disguise or cover up anything: politics, ideas, values, whatever. Still, most often it refers to a woman who stoops to rouge/ruse to charm some poor innocent guy. As our discussion turns to feminine wiles, a stunning blonde, dressed in nothing but heavy makeup, gold chains and her bikini bottom, spreads her (beach towel) nearby. “” confides Miky (in a stage whisper). “” made up—i.e., disguised—like a stolen car.“” (Do you mind if I go topless?), the beauty says, turning to me.“,” I answer. “Do you mind if I DON’T?”© Julia Frey 2009
