Stéphane Bern returns, in his column "The last word", on an expression that every player has heard one day, "the dice are loaded".

A way of saying that the outcome of a game is sewn up with white thread, often to the detriment of the one who advances these accusations.

In fact, the expression finds its origins in the world of hunting in the Middle Ages.

Stéphane Bern suggests every day, in 

Historically yours

 with Matthieu Noël, to discover these expressions that we use on a daily basis without necessarily knowing their origin.

This Tuesday, the host makes a foray into the field of the game with "the dice are loaded", a way of signaling that the outcome of a game (or any other process, for that matter) is known in advance, despite the appearance of chance and indecision.

"When we play, whatever the game, we hate that the opponent does not respect the rules and we have only one fear: that the dice are loaded. In the 13th century, a pipe, or a pipet, is a call that is used in hunting to attract birds, often to bring them into a trap.

The bird trapped

This still exists, especially with glue, even if it is normally prohibited and suspended since the end of last August.

This pipet was the ancestor of the pipet, used in the pictorial expression to denounce someone who is lying.

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In the 14th century, 'piper' means 'to imitate the cry of a bird to attract it'.

The deception is obvious and the bird, sometimes too late, understands that he has been played on.

Thus, some dice are loaded, namely that they were designed to deceive the person with whom you are playing.

English fish, Portuguese sinkers

Quebeckers have kept the expression and use it when someone tells stories.

It is said then that he 'tales pipes'.

Among the English, to say that there is a fraud, we say 'something is fishy', which means that there is something 'fishy'.

As for our Portuguese friends, the expression 'os dados sao chumbados' is used, namely 'the dice are sealed'.

Whether they are loaded or weighted, we remain the turkey of the stuffing! "