Friday 7 January 2022

pardon my french

Cynically characterised by some as a political ploy ahead of the election to stoke resentment for those members of the public refusing or hesitant over vaccines the vulgarity that Emmanuel Macron lobbied against the small but vocal minority of the unvaccinated that’s being translated, innocuously, as “be made pissed off”—whereas, perhaps just as inoffensively if not a bit rough (see also), the original word choice was emmerder, a literal calque one can easily imagine but conveys the sense of “to make inopportune” and rather responsibly makes social venues the preserved of those inoculated. Much more at Language Log at the link above.