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EYE ON EUROPE |
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How did the French get
the 'frog' nickname?
of TheColumnists.com
I once had a small role in naming a new French helicopter. The manufacturer had provided food and drink for a group of journalists and brought us together for this creative exercise. I thought I had the perfect name for the little chopper: “The Frog”, and I argued for it as best I could after that lunch.
What could be more appropriate for a tiny French machine that hops from pad to pad? The assembled hacks liked the idea, too.
But the French aerospace executives suspected I was making fun of them as “frogs”, a nickname they didn’t appreciate, so my idea didn’t fly. They had seen British tabloids use the term one time too many. In the end, they called the helicopter “The Squirrel”, even less complimentary, I thought.
I see these helicopters around here once in a while and I always think, “You could have been a frog but you’re just a squirrel.”
The French have been tagged with their nickname for a surprisingly short time. The Oxford English Dictionary’s first reference is 1873 under “Froggy”, defined as “a term of contempt for a Frenchman, from their reputed habit of eating frogs.”
I would have said “term of affection” rather than “contempt” but it is true, that they eat frogs’ thighs, as they call frogs’ legs, although not that often any more. Frog slaughtering was banned in France in the 1950s. Now they are imported from Asia and East Europe, and certain restaurants offer them sporadically.
I find the dictionary’s definition unconvincing in another way. The French are not alone in appreciating frogs’ legs. The Chinese and other Asian countries also consider them a delicacy yet we don’t call those people “froggies”. Even English essayist Charles Lamb was a frog fancier. He wrote in the early 19th century, “I have been in France and I have eaten frogs. The nicest little rabbity things you ever tasted.”
Recently I opted for fried frogs’ legs as an appetizer at an upmarket restaurant. I found them more chickeny than rabbity and a lot more trouble to eat than they were worth. Try getting a few strips of meat off those tiny bones without surgical tools. They were served with a finger-bowl.
Could the French really be nicknamed for this marginal dish?
Attempting to get to the bottom of the mystery, I consulted linguistic history and discovered the 19th century linguistics writer Jean-Pierre Brisset, who became obsessed with how frogs swim. Eventually he started listening to them and decided that they were saying “coac-coac”, French for “gribbet-gribbet”. Brisset’s ear was closer to that of the ancient Greek Aristophanes, who rendered the familiar croak as “brekekekex coax coax”.
This is where the story goes off the rails. Brisset communed with frogs to the point of trying to engage them in conversation, and became convinced that they were saying “Quoi, quoi”, French for “What, what?”
"One day,” he wrote, “we were observing these pretty little animals, repeating their cry, “coac”, when one of them responded, its eyes sparkling, by two or three “coacs”. It was clear to us that it was asking us, “What are you saying?”
This theory assumes that the frog was speaking French, no doubt a satisfying discovery for Brisset and his enquiries into the origin of human language. In a word, he was saying, “Aha -- every language must be derived from French.”
This theory falls to pieces when comparing other languages’ rendering of the frog’s croak: In Russian, it is “kva kva”, in Japanese, “kerokero”, in Korean, "gae-gool-gae-gool”, in Thai, "ob ob”, in Turkish, “vrak vrak”, in Cajun French “ouaouaron”, and in Argentine Spanish, simply “burp”. None of these expressions means “What?”
Theories on the French nickname abound, dating back to Frankish King Clovis, who had emblems of bees and frogs sewn on his cloak. If that didn’t trigger the name, perhaps it came from the 17th century when Paris was surrounded by swampland and all Parisians were known to other French people as frogs.
My personal favourite is the affectionate
name Elizabeth I reserved for her ambassador to France, whom
she addressed in her letters “Dearest Frog”.
Now who can call that charming pet name a term of contempt? Clearly
it’s the best in French pillow talk.
©2008 by Michael
Johnson. The cartoons are from IMSI's Master Clips Collection,
1895 Francisco Blvd. E., San Rafael, CA, 94901-5506, USA. This
column first posted June 30, 2008.
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