Chanter comme une seringue / Chanter comme une casserole
Meaning: To sing badly out of tune.
Language: French
Literally: To sing like a syringe / like a saucepan
Category: Daily Life
Origin: From the start of the 19th century, and no lexicographer has produced a probable explanation. Walter Gottschalk notes only the sound of seringue against sirène and serin — you meant to sing like a canary and came out a siren — which would make the syringe a joke slid in on the resemblance. There may also be a link to the old slang sense of seringue for a thoroughly stupid person, on the reasoning that an idiot could hardly be expected to sing in tune. And seringue does come from Greek syrinx, meaning a tube but also a shepherd's pipe, which leaves room for a sound judged according to the shepherd. The saucepan needs no defense: it is the sound of the pans traditionally tied behind a wedding car.
More idioms — Daily Life
- Pédaler dans la semoule — To be confused and getting nowhere.
- Avoir d'autres chats à fouetter — To have more important things to do.
- Avoir le cul entre deux chaises — To be indecisive, caught between two options.
- Les carottes sont cuites — It's too late, nothing can be done.
- Ich verstehe nur Bahnhof — I don't understand anything at all.
- Schwein haben — Getting unexpectedly lucky — rooted in medieval tournaments where the last-place finisher…
More French idioms
- Ça ne casse pas trois pattes à un canard — It's nothing special or impressive.
- C'est comme pisser dans un violon — A completely pointless effort.
- Avoir le cafard — To feel depressed or down.
- Poser un lapin — To stand someone up on a date.
- Tomber dans les pommes — Suddenly losing consciousness — possibly derived from the older expression 'être dans les…
- Avoir la moutarde qui monte au nez — To be getting angry.
From our tongue twisters
- Les chaussettes de l'archiduchesse sont-elles sèches, archi-sèches? — A merciless duel between 'ch' and 's'.
- Si six scies scient six cyprès, six cents scies scient six cents cyprès. — An 's' / 'si' minefield.
- Dans ta tente ta tante t'attend. — A gentle 'ta / ten / tan / t'' warm-up that sounds faster than it reads.
Loading the full interactive collection…