This week’s podcast episode is about that most essential of French essentials, the baguette. And not only that, we are talking about a language observation I made several years ago. Did you know that une baguette doesn’t just mean a long and delicious piece of bread? No. It means so much more, listen on to discover the power of la baguette.
As I mentioned in the episode, I learned how adaptable this word it, after someone offered me baguettes in a sushi restaurant in Paris, referring to chopsticks.
So, imagine my surprise when I actually looked up baguette in a dictionary and found that there are multiple, interesting definitions. Don’t forget, there’s only around 100,000 words in the French language, which pales in comparison to the 500,000 English words. So, of course, many of these definitions have their own specific term in English, but when it comes to French, they have to rely on the trusty old baguette to help them out.
To verify my ponderings, I turned to Véronique Savoye from France with Véro, a guru on all things French, and in the course of our chat, she confirmed that baguette can mean anything straight, from a drumstick for a drummer to a magic wand for a magician (baguette magique). The Larousse dictionary says d’un coup de baguette magique is “as if by magic”. Below you’ll find my favourite selection of the uses we discussed together.
A conductor uses a baguette to lead an orchestra (a baton in English), the side trim on your car is a baguette de protection, and a stick of incense is a baguette d’encens.
If you enjoy using a little French slang, you can call someone’s legs baguettes (tu as vu mes baguettes? Have you seen my legs?)
Ever seen those people who point a stick to find water… that stick is a baguette too. It’s a baguette de sourcier (or a divining rod in English).
You can even say a sentence like “her hair is as straight as baguettes” if it’s really, really straight (elle a les cheveux raides comme des baguettes).
And lastly, if someone “leads with a baguette” (mener à la baguette) it means they lead with an iron fist.
Now, this makes me wonder how you’d say: She had straight hair and long legs and she ate her baguettes with chopsticks…
Luckily for all of us, Véro recorded a quick translation, which I’ve included in the pod. Give it a listen and you won’t quite believe your ears.
That’s it for this week folks. Remember, if you’re in a pinch for a conversation topic, bring up la baguette and see where it goes…
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Bonjour,
je dis “bâton d’encens” et non baguette d’encens.
n’oublions pas les baguettes de tambour
et pour rire, attention ne pas confondre baguette et braguette (mdr)
j’aime beaucoup votre site et désolé de ne pas répondre en anglais (7 ans d’allemand) et merci Google pour les traductions
Bonne journée
J-Luc
je me demande si «mener à la baguette» est comme
“parlez doucement & carry a big stick”?
Good question, to which I have no answer!
I’d like to propose that we should simply abandon our English language (American?) concept that baguette is a word that EQUALS that type of bread. Instead, since every word in every language exists as sort of a cloud of similar meanings, we can easily find that baguette means something more like “stick.”
That being said, we can applaud the humor inherent in calling a piece of bread a stick!, Then the other meanings you cite simply fall in line with the conceptual cloud that is the French word “baguette.”
When Americans refer to their car as their “wheels,” they’re not trying to say their car is black and round. It’s a bit more esoteric than that, and it’s similar to calling that bread a baguette.
Ah…stick… I remember at some point referring to a baguette as a french stick, and the larger one as a french loaf.
Avec une baguette magique, il pouvait manger sa baguette avec une seule baguette.