In the new show from Europe 1, "Historically yours", Stéphane Bern examines the roots of an expression of everyday life.
Wednesday, he is interested in the origin of "to be fed up"
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.
Thursday, the host tells us about the origin of "to be fed up".
"Fed up" is a very simple word with amazing roots.
It could be at the origin of a verb, "to marer", which meant not to be screwed up but quite the reverse.
"Se marer", which is written with a single "r", meant "to be bored".
To denote boredom, one could also "marry" - this time with two "r's".
It was not so long ago that we said "to be very married" to evoke a strong annoyance.
In the 18th century, "to have your husband" is to have your share of the booty
But for the linguist Alain Rey, co-founder of the
Le Robert
dictionary
, the origin of this expression lies elsewhere.
According to him, the word "marre" would come from an 18th century slang term, "mar" or "maré", which designates a share of a booty: The thieves, once their misdeeds committed, share the stolen money: "to have your husband" is "to have your share".
What was yesterday "to have what one has the right" then becomes, over the years, "to have his account", to understand, "to have reached saturation".
To be fed up, then.
Abroad, the expressions to say that we have had enough come from very different lexicons.
In Germany, for example, we say "to have a full muzzle" and in Spain "to have it until the eggs".