Courir sur le haricot / Taper sur le système
Meaning: To get on someone's nerves.
Language: French
Literally: To run on the bean / to bang on the system
Category: Food & Drink
Origin: The système version is the straightforward one: it appears around the 1850s as a clipping of taper sur le système nerveux, banging on someone's nervous system. The haricot is the puzzle, and the lexicographers have never settled it — even its date is loose, placed at the end of the 19th century by some and the start of the 20th by others. The vegetable is a red herring. Slang gave haricot a scatter of other senses — the toe, the head, the penis, the testicles — none of which obviously fits, and several of which raise the awkward question of why the word is singular. The verb haricoter, which in the first half of the 19th century meant to pester, may have fed into it too. Courir is easier: from the 16th century courir quelqu'un already meant to badger them, probably by way of a sense of pursuing someone too assiduously, which will annoy anyone.
More idioms — Food & Drink
- Être dans la mouise / Être dans la panade / Être dans la purée — To be broke and in real trouble.
- 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.
- Pédaler dans la semoule — To be confused and getting nowhere.
- Raconter des salades — To tell lies or tall tales.
- En faire tout un fromage — To make a big deal out of nothing.
More French idioms
- Habiller quelqu'un pour l'hiver — To run someone down, usually behind their back.
- Mettre le holà — To put a stop to something.
- Ça me fait une belle jambe — That is no use to me whatsoever.
- Rire jaune — To force a laugh; to laugh while plainly not amused.
- En jeter / Ça en jette ! — To look genuinely impressive.
- Y a pas de lézard ! — No problem; it's all fine.
From our false friends
- Monnaie — Actually means 'change' or 'coins'. Money in general is l'argent.
- Sensible — Actually means 'sensitive'. For sensible/level-headed, say raisonnable.
- Librairie — Actually means 'bookshop'. A library is une bibliothèque.
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