FrenchLa réponse du berger à la bergère
Meaning: The retort that ends an argument for good; also, giving someone exactly what they gave you.
Literally: The shepherd's reply to the shepherdess
Example: “Il l'avait traitée de radine ; elle lui a offert une chaussette pour Noël : la réponse du berger à la bergère.” — He'd called her stingy; she gave him a single sock for Christmas: tit for tat.
English equivalent: Tit for tat
Equivalents in other languages
English: tit for tat
Origin: From the 17th-century fashion for pastorals, in which berger and bergère took on the figurative senses of lover and mistress. The phrase is usually traced to Racan's Les Bergeries, whose shepherd-and-shepherdess dialogues give the shepherd the last word. The second sense is 20th-century and rests on the literal reading instead: two people at the same trade know exactly how to do to each other what was done to them.
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