Voilà pourquoi votre fille est muette
Meaning: Said of a grand explanation that explains nothing.
Language: French
Literally: That is why your daughter is mute
Category: The Absurd
Origin: From Molière's Le Médecin malgré lui (The Doctor in Spite of Himself), in which the fraudulent Sganarelle delivers a torrent of pseudo-Latin and concludes with exactly this line. The joke is that the audience knows the daughter is faking.
More idioms — The Absurd
- Passez, muscade ! — Hey presto — said when something vanishes suspiciously conveniently.
- Se croire le premier moutardier du pape — To have a wildly inflated sense of one's own importance.
- Mystère et boule de gomme — Nobody has the faintest idea.
- Promettre monts et merveilles — To promise far more than could ever be delivered.
- De la poudre de perlimpinpin — A worthless remedy sold with great confidence.
- Un lit de Procuste — A standard imposed regardless of what it does to the thing being measured.
More French idioms
- Entre le marteau et l'enclume — Caught between two opposing forces with no way out.
- Un pavé dans la mare — A revelation or intervention that disturbs a settled situation.
- Il y a de l'orage dans l'air — Trouble is brewing.
- Rouler sur l'or — To be enormously wealthy.
- Valoir son pesant d'or — To be extremely valuable.
- Manu militari — By force; with physical compulsion.
From our compliments & insults
- Casse-pieds — A massive bore or pain in the neck — someone who wears you down with their irritating way…
- Espèce de patate — You dim bulb — a potato being the very picture of inert, unthinking stodginess.
- Quel râleur / quelle râleuse — You never stop moaning — everything is a complaint, nothing is ever good enough.
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