Talk:French

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Chatter[edit]

"There are similar expressions in France, but referring to England. The "French cream" (a sweet milky sauce for desserts like cakes) is called in French "crème je s in burkinabe jemerait corespondre avec toi t jesper ma reponse anglaise" (English cream). In the same way condoms used to be called "capotes anglaises" (English overcoats) and "to take a French leave" traduce as "filer à l'anglaise". "

Similarly ironic synonyms include Cor anglais and french horn, waters (French old-fashioned/posh slang for toilet) and loo (Brit. English old-fashioned/posh slang for toilet from l'eau, french for water). There is another ones of these but I can't recall it.
Joe Llywelyn Griffith Blakesley talk contrib 18:44, 24 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The English are doing things in the wrong way from a French POV. For instance they have the very strange habit to use defeat to name their squares and stations (Waterloo, Trafalgar) while the French use victories names. ;-)


Another common definition of "French" refers to a tube circumference in millimeters, or sometimes defined as three times tube diameter in millimeters (as opposed to true circumference which is pi times diameter).

Links[edit]

What is so awful about having links to other pages which have "French" as part of their titles? Why have they been removed (including their definitions, on which somebody worked rather hard I can imagine), and, more importantly, where else can one find them? (Certainly not in Wiktionary, I just had a look there.) As always, my questions are not meant rhetorically.

<KF> 00:34, September 4, 2005 (UTC)

Anyone searching for "French" is not looking for any of these articles. The disambig pages are meant for just that; disambiguation. I simply think they should be as short as possible.
Peter Isotalo 16:02, 8 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
While I prefer not quoting non-official guidelines, it seems rather appropriate to do it alongside my own argumentation here. Here's an excerpt from Wikipedia:Disambiguation:
On a page called Title, generally do not disambiguate:
  • Title County
  • Title City
  • Title Hospital
  • Title University
"Title Island", "Title River" or "River Title" may be worth listing in cases where the "Island"/"River" part is often omitted.
This practice seems to be generally accepted, but disambigs still require cleaning from time to time because people think these are a place to add various dicdefs and other obscure references. And just think about it yourself, how practical would these pages actually be if people added any off-hand reference to the word "French"?
Peter Isotalo 12:27, 11 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
I guess anyone interested in languages would find a list like the one above rather interesting as it shows at a glance what English-speaking people around the world consider to be in one way or another originating from, or at least linked to, France—things often wholly unrelated to that nation. Of course you can compile such a list anytime yourself by using Google or Wikipedia's own search engine (if it hasn't been turned off "for performance reasons"). However, if one thinks along those lines, everyone is of course free to compile and write their own, private encyclopaedia.
Anyway, I never insist on anything here at Wikipedia, and whenever I myself want to retrieve this particular list, I can look at this talk page. All the best, <KF> 14:51, September 11, 2005 (UTC)
I'm not disagreeing about all of the added suggestion, but to me this just seems as a matter of setting limits. If we keep French XXX of any sort, how are we to delimit the list? There's no end to articles with that name and these pages are supposed to be navigational helps.
Peter Isotalo 14:05, 13 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Well, from all the French XXX entries, the following certainly would not belong in this list:
Other articles which I think do belong in this list are, for example:
Strangely, I seem to have overlooked some people named French, for example Kristen French, Nicci French and Nicki French—although I went through the search engine results very slowly and carefully.
So there wouldn't be "no end to articles with that name". <KF> 20:39, 13 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
As long as everyone agrees with your conclusions as to what an acceptable disambig link is. Dab pages are not designed to help people make general searches; we have the search engine for that. Anyone looking for French cuff is going to enter the whole term or "cufflink", and if that doesn't work, they'll use the search engines. They won't enter "French" and hope for the best.
Peter Isotalo 15:49, 24 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Wiktionary is for lists of phrases containing a word or affix/infix as it is purely a lingustic categorisation (and not a notable enough one for an enyclopedia).
Joe Llywelyn Griffith Blakesley talk contrib 18:44, 24 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

People named French[edit]

Why is "Neal Greene" on the list? Am I missing something? It has survived multiple edits. Hoibes 21:14, 9 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

French sayings common in English?[edit]

Is there a wikipedia article on French sayings prevalent in English, such as C'est la vie? Nagelfar 04:25, 27 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Nevermind, found it. Nagelfar 04:30, 27 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

A General Question[edit]

Can someone provide a good justification for why pages like French, German, Romanian, etc., etc., go directly to disambiguation pages? It seems like it would be much better to direct them to the x_language article and put a tag on that saying "This article refers to blah blah, go here for the disambiguation page." I know that every single time I have ever gone to .../wiki/French or whatever, I am looking for French language, not something to link me to the France article or the band or anything. Palinurus june 22 2007 <math>Insert non-formatted text here</math>[[Media:[[Image:Example.ogg]] == [Headline text]'''''Italic text''''' == ]]

What do the French call French Toast?[edit]

Please provide a list of the french term for each peculiar "French xxxx" term in English. -69.87.204.97 —Preceding comment was added at 20:34, 8 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

This is an encyclopedia, not a translator. Try http://wordreference.com/ instead. --Cheeser1 01:15, 9 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I'll still answer it for you though, they call it "pain perdu" which translates to "lost bread" in English.--Chef Christopher Allen Tanner, CCC 03:18, 9 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

just saying...[edit]

someone just deleted the whole thing and wrote that french people are french or something like that -_---~*Angelstar*~ 02:03, 14 February 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Angelstarstar (talkcontribs)

why is Neal green in the list?? Am I missing something? Nothing has ever linked me to the French article 41.116.214.23 (talk) 15:20, 15 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah there isn't any information that we can rely on 41.116.214.23 (talk) 15:23, 15 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]