Être à côté de la plaque
Meaning: To be wide of the mark; to answer something other than the question asked.
Language: French
Literally: To be next to the plate
Category: Daily Life
Origin: Unsettled, though one candidate is much likelier than the other. Discount the cooking plate, the dental plate and the manhole cover, and what remains first is shooting: the plaque is the target panel — a straw boss in archery, a round metal plate in some pistol events — so a shot that misses lands beside it. The explanation is unglamorous, which is exactly why it is probably right: it describes something a great many people did, and phrases spread from what people do. The rival account comes from the railways, where a roundhouse turntable sits over a pit, and a driver who moved his locomotive before the pivoting section was properly lined up put it beside the plate and into the hole. Vivid, but confined to a small trade.
More idioms — Daily Life
- Ça va durer trois plombes — It's going to take hours.
- Avoir la poisse — To have persistent, clinging bad luck.
- Avoir un coup de pompe — To be hit by a sudden wave of exhaustion.
- Ça se bouscule au portillon — There's a crush; also, crudely, of an urgent need to be sick.
- Tirer le portrait — To take someone's photograph.
- S'en moquer comme de l'an quarante — To not care in the slightest.
More French idioms
- Se chatouiller le poireau / S'astiquer la colonne — To masturbate, said of a man. Vulgar.
- Manger sur le pouce — To eat in a hurry, standing up.
- Cucul la praline — Twee; soppy; embarrassingly naive.
- Pour des prunes — For nothing; in vain.
- 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.
From our tongue twisters
- 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.
- Seize chaises sèches sur seize arches sèches. — A relentless collision of 'sei', 'sèch', and 's' — the tongue can't find traction.
Loading the full interactive collection…