This morning had me getting an early breakfast and finished watching the gold medal round of basketball, yes, I watched basketball, see what happens to me during the Olympics! Then Moonsong arrived and I was out the door to the office for some quiet work time. Got expense report done and a few reservations in plus worked on a Better Business Bureau (BBB) complaint that is really getting under my skin. We shall see what happens. About 12:30 I was done and headed to Rob & Jodie's to drop off some spices to them and home.
Now, through all this I had to deal with some real dumb ass drivers out there. Thus the topic of my blog post today! What is it about Sunday's that brings out the stupidest drivers. I swear it is true. Not just tourists, but locals and people just not paying attention to anything except the need to have two or three car lengths between them and anything. Talk about seeing bad parkers too! It was all there and over and over I kept using choice words in addition to Sacre Bleu. The expression came up in conversation last week in Canada and Markie posted the following to his blog that I share with you, thank you to Wikipedia.
Usage
The expression today is not in widespread use in the major French-speaking countries France, Belgium or Switzerland, but in the English-speaking world, it is well known from Agatha Christie’s books about the fictional Belgian detective Hercule Poirot.
Most French dictionaries state “sacrebleu” to be equivalent to “sacredieu”. An equivalent English phrase is “Dag Nabbit” (or other variations e.g. Dagnabbit, Dadgum) as the name of God is also substituted as the term bleu in the French curse.
Origin
The phrase originated from the swear words “sacré bleu”, a Marian oath, referring to the color (i.e., “sacred blue”) associated with Mary, mother of Jesus.
Other sources propose its coming from old blasphemous curses relating to God, used from the late Middle-Age (some are attested as early as the 11th century) to the 14th (at the latest), with many variants: morbleu or mordieu, corbleu, palsambleu, jarnidieu, tudieu, respectively standing for mort [de] Dieu (God’s death), corps [de] Dieu (God’s body), par le sang [de] Dieu (by God’s blood, the two latters possibly referring to the Eucharistic bread and wine), je renie Dieu (I deny God), tue Dieu (kill God)… Those curses may be compared to the archaic English [God']sdeath, sblood, struth or zounds (God’s wounds). They were considered so offensive that Dieu was sublimated into the similar sounding neutral syllable bleu. The verb sacrer has several meanings, including to crown, to anoint, to name someone [champion, best actor, etc.], and in the past, rarely in France but more common in French Canada, of swear, curse. Therefore, sacrebleu could be in modern French Je jure par Dieu and in English I curse by God, or the more used I swear to God. And so goes the Sunday rant, I mean posting and I do believe it is time for a nap. Then I will pop the lemon-pepper crusted pork loin over roasted root vegetables into the oven in time for Jeff's arrival for dinner complete with cole slaw and good conversation. Cheers!
Sunday, August 12, 2012
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