Le téléphone arabe
Meaning: Word of mouth — news traveling by rumor, fast and increasingly wrong.
Language: French
Literally: The Arab telephone
Category: Daily Life
Origin: The written traces begin around 1943 and the phrase is probably older. The telephone half is the joke: information moves down a chain of people so quickly that the two ends look as though they must have been wired together, and there is some admiration in that — no infrastructure required, and it beats the post. The arabe half comes from colonial North Africa, where the French noticed that important news crossed the country by messenger and conversation long before any cable did, and named the phenomenon after the people doing it rather than after the phenomenon. Téléphone de brousse was used the same way of sub-Saharan Africa. Both labels carry a sneer, and the sneer is aimed at the second half of the process: each retelling deforms the message a little, until what arrives bears no useful relation to what was sent. English calls the children's version Chinese whispers and has exactly the same problem with it.
More idioms — Daily Life
- Le torchon brûle — There is open discord — most often between a couple.
- Fort comme un Turc — Extremely strong and robust.
- Avoir une veine de cocu — To be outrageously, undeservedly lucky.
- Prendre une veste — To suffer a defeat, especially at the polls.
- Pédaler dans la semoule — To be confused and getting nowhere.
- Avoir d'autres chats à fouetter — To have more important things to do.
More French idioms
- À tire-larigot — In enormous quantities; to excess.
- Y a pas à tortiller du cul — Enough hesitating — a decision has to be made. Also: this is simply undeniable.
- Ne pas valoir tripette — To be worthless; to be of no interest whatsoever.
- Ne pas avoir les yeux en face des trous — To be unable to see what is right in front of you — usually because you are barely awake.
- Manger de la vache enragée — To live in real poverty; to go through a long stretch of hardship.
- Parler français comme une vache espagnole — To speak French appallingly badly.
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