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Des goûts et des couleurs on ne discute pas

Meaning: There is no arguing with personal preference.

Language: French

Literally: Of tastes and colors one does not argue

Category: Daily Life

Origin: A French rendering of the scholastic tag de gustibus et coloribus non est disputandum. It is generally deployed to close a conversation rather than to concede a point.

More idioms — Daily Life

  • Mettre le grappin sur quelque chose — To get one's hooks into something and not let go.
  • De gré ou de force — Willingly or unwillingly; one way or another.
  • Le Grenelle de quelque chose — A large multi-party negotiation convened to settle a national issue.
  • L'habit ne fait pas le moine — Appearances do not establish what someone is.
  • C'est de l'hébreu — It is completely incomprehensible.
  • Vieux comme Hérode — Extremely ancient.

More French idioms

  • Un combat homérique — A struggle of epic scale and duration.
  • Un homme averti en vaut deux — Advance warning doubles a person's effectiveness.
  • Honi soit qui mal y pense — Let anyone who reads something improper into this be the one disgraced.
  • À huis clos — In closed session, with the public excluded.
  • Mettre à l'index — To blacklist something or exclude it from acceptable use.
  • Un violon d'Ingres — A serious passion pursued outside one's actual profession.

From our tongue twisters

  • Un beau ver vert dans un verre vert verra un ver vert. — Ver (worm), vert (green), and verre (glass) are near-homophones — distinguishing them at…
  • Didon dîna, dit-on, du dos d'un dodu dindon dont le dodu dos dodine. — A 'd' / 'din' / 'dod' avalanche that seems designed to jam the tongue in third gear.
  • Un chasseur sachant chasser doit savoir chasser sans son chien. — The classic French 'ch' / 's' tangler.

Browse all tongue twisters →

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