The night is a strawberry...

[khiemtran]

In one of the Louise Penny murder mysteries, set in Quebec, there's a running gag where an Anglophone attached to an English library tries to say something in French and it comes out as "the night is a strawberry" (and then adds that the English "were good pumpkins").

Does anyone have any idea what she might have been trying to say?

I'm guessing it might have been "L'annuité est une frais" which would make some sort of sense if discussing library membership. Any other ideas?

Comments

[mnfaure.livejournal.com]

For the strawberry part it might be "La nuit était fraîche" (the night was cold), but perhaps the character says "frais" (masculin) instead, which looks more like fraise/strawberry?

The phrase about pumpkins could be spot on ("sont des bonnes courges") because it is a way of saying someone is stupid.

[khiemtran.livejournal.com]

Cool, thanks! This changes things a bit, because I thought she was praising the English.

[mnfaure.livejournal.com]

Maybe she thought she was praising them? As in she thought it was a nice thing to say?

[khiemtran.livejournal.com]

Yes, I guess that could be it.

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

I was going to guess the first one too! But had no idea about the second.

[mnfaure.livejournal.com]

I wouldn't have had an idea either if I didn't have J to help me. :P

[khiemtran.livejournal.com]

I didn't know courge was pumpkin, but I knew courgette from English. It probably should have been obvious, but I'd never thought of pumpkins and zucchini as being that close before. I guess in English, they are all "squashes".

[khiemtran.livejournal.com]

The books are very funny in English, but I'm starting to get the impression that there's a bit of artistic licemce in some of these "mistakes".

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

I guess we'd have to know how much knowledge of French (and, from what cecile_c says, the difference between Canadian French and French-in-France) to know!

[cecile-c.livejournal.com]

I suppose the 'good pumpkin' thing is a gag because saying 'courge' for 'stupid' it's French from France, but according to my friends in Québec, it's not a word they actually use over there (it was one of the many phrases I used that made them laugh). So yes, I imagine it might be something an Anglophone could inadvertently say if they looked up 'stupid' in the wrong dictionnary!

[khiemtran.livejournal.com]

Thanks! That's interesting to know. I guess this is a lot more complex than I first thought!