OT: French Idioms (was Re: Char type verification)

["Jeffrey R. Carter" <spam.not.jrcarter@acm.not.spam.org>]

Dennis Lee Bieber wrote:
>>
> 	Okay... I did say 22 year old HS course <G> As I recall the first
> page of the textbook basically inflicted
> 
> 	Bonjour, je m'appelle Danielle
> 
> upon the students, only explaining it as "hello, my name is Danielle".
> Which again could reflect idioms... After all, if someone introduced
> themselves with "Hello, I call myself Danielle" my mind would be going
> "... and what do others call you?" (after all, online, and at FurCon's,
> I "call myself" Wulfraed... but that is not my legal name)

That's the idiomatic translation. When I consider the literal 
translation, I always wonder the same thing. Of course, when I hear a 
song that says, "You get the best of my love," I always wonder who gets 
the rest.

I find the French reflexive verbs interesting. When I'm thinking in 
French (which I don't do much anymore), they make perfect sense. The 
literal translations, though, are meaningless. For example, the French 
equivalent of "I brush my hair" is "Je me brosse les cheveux". 
Literally, that means, "I brush myself the hairs."

I wonder what the Francophones who frequent c.l.a make of all this.

-- 
Jeff Carter
"Sheriff murdered, crops burned, stores looted,
people stampeded, and cattle raped."
Blazing Saddles
35