Every day, in "Historically yours", Stéphane Bern offers to discover the origins of expressions that we use on a daily basis without necessarily knowing where they come from.
On Wednesday, the host looks at the origin of "making a mess of it", which we owe to an 18th century grammarian.
Every day, in
Historically yours
, Stéphane Bern suggests discovering the origins of expressions that we use every day.
Monday, the host returns to "make a mess of it", a phrase derived from a joke dating from the 18th century.
Or when a pronunciation defect makes it possible to invent new words.
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These women who did too much
The expression "to make a big deal out of it", which means "to do too much" or "to make a fuss", has its origin in an 18th century joke.
Here it is: a man was at the theater, seated next to two very dressed ladies, in extremely - if not exaggeratedly - groomed toilets.
The two spectators speak loudly, and put on a show.
But suddenly, the man finds a fan and asks the first one: "Madam, is it yours?"
To which the interested party replies: "no, it is not mine."
The young man turns to the second: "Is he yours?"
Same answer: "no, it is not-a-month".
The youngster concludes by saying: "if it is not yours or yours, I don't know what!", Mocking the pronunciation error of his neighbor ...
"Pas-t-à quoi" will become "pataquès" and this is how a dangerous affair gave birth to an expression: "to make a whole pataquès".
Nothing guarantees the authenticity of this story, but it comes to us from a grammarian, François-Urbain Domergue, who did not fail to give a good reminder of pronunciation.
"To make a mess of it" can therefore also be used to underline a fault of connection with its interlocutor.