Lois & Clark Forums Forums Fan Fiction Fanfic Related FFQ: French terms of endearment?

If you were a scheming lothario like Claude, what would you call Lois as a sort of affection pet name? I was looking it up online but I mostly got "mon lapin" (my rabbit) and something about cabbage. Lol, I've actually heard the cabbage one is indeed a strong term of affection, but I thought I'd broach the question here before I posted it in the story and brought all the French speaking FOLCs to tears of laughter at my horrible French skills.

(Thanks again for all the help and debate over Claude's last name. That was wonderful help and I really just wanted to give him like six different last names because they all sounded so great. Hehe.)

*Snork giggle snort*

In this one movie called 'No Alibi,' the chick from Andromoda teaches Dean's character how to say 'My little love cow,' which was totally just wrong and hilarious.

Can't exactly remember how to say it though.

I've found this in my french dictionary.

mon petit lapin - little hare
mon petit trésor - little treasure
mon petit poussin - little biddy/chick

And I'm pretty sure that "mon petit chou" is another common term.

There were also:

mon chéri (for men)
ma chérie (for women)
mon ourson (little bear)

I guess the french speaking FoLC's (I only pretend to know that language) can help out with more.

Mon petit veau d'amour.

Sue (who has never repeatedly watched that scene. No. Never.)

the cabbage one, is "mon choux" -- it's used a lot. I wouldn't like being called that, but lots of people use it, it's common and it would work very well.

Barbara's suggestions are pretty good. Others you could use might be:

- ma biche (a doe)
- ma poule (a hen, but that's a little bit condescending - though it might fit Claude to use that!)

That's all that's coming to mind right now, but if I think of more, I'll let you know.

Oh! And the love cow from No Alibi that Cat is referring to is "mon petit veau d'amour" - but that's masculine and the feminine version ("ma petite vache d'amour") is WAY, way too close to an insult to be useful. ("vache" means "cow" and in neither languages it's something a man wants to call a woman if he wants to hang on to his family jewels...)

Thank you all! You've been very helpful.

*giggles* Sue, you didn't have to edit the way you'd written it. She says it wrong in the movie - and he repeats it wrong and.... it makes me cry a little bit because this is just about the only little bit of French I've ever heard out of him. *sniffles*

~Lara
who walks by the stairs where they filmed the scene in which she gives him her phone number - and has a fan girl moment just about every single time. I... um... walk by that place twice a day every single day of my life... (*runs away and hides for fear people will lock her away with the crazies she's been dealing with all night*)

If you're crazy, what's it say about me for the whole envy thing about that?

And yay! Thanks yall! Couldn't remember how to say it. WOOT!

Ma biche... for us poor slobs who have forgotten everything we learnt during those two years when we took French way back when during the Neolithic Age, doesn't that sound just like "my bitch"? Wouldn't it sound that way to Lois, unless her French is really good?

Ah, Lara. You get to have a fan moment twice a day, walking past the Stairs of Dean. How about you bring along a very small chisel one day and chip off a very small piece of one of the steps and bring it home and have it bronzed? And put it on a pedestal? Don't laugh, you might be able to sell it one day! Reminds me of the trafficking of holy relics back in the Middle Ages - hey, I remember those days, you know - where two churches in Europe claimed to be in possession of the head of Saint John the Baptist. Well, one of the churches owned the head of Saint John as a child, and the other one owned the head of Saint John as an adult! What, me going off on a tangent? Let's take a look at Claude as a child, practising serenading and calling Lois "ma biche":



Ann

Ermm.... No? Sounds something like "bishop" without the "op" - there's no 't' anywhere in there. And she'd be able to tell the difference, especially if he has a French (from France) accent because the way they say the 'i' in that word is very crisp, compared to how we'd say it here in Québec.

And even if *Lois* said it - which she wouldn't because it's a feminine form and I don't see her calling another woman that - she could manage to pronounce it in a way that wouldn't lead anyone to believe she was secretly calling them a bitch.

Loves how you named them. I usually call it "the entrance to THAT building" - 'that building' having been explained about half a million times in emails and in my LJ, people tend to know which one it is. (The same way if I mention I was talking with 'Batman' today, most people know I mean a guy at work who I like to call that way for reasons that would be obvious if you knew him, too)

I could try to snatch a piece of concrete from there - it probably wouldn't be so hard. *lol* Though for the moment, the entrance and the stairs are blocked due to renovation of the building... Sad because I used to go down these stairs every once in a while (just like in the movie, yes, yes, my madness doesn't end at just looking...) and now I can barely even see them. *cries* (ok, not really crying... *lol*)

I don't know,
BICHE
IF I interpret your post correctly, to me sounds like BISH
with a similar pronunciation to FISH...

the vowel sounds to me are therefore the same, or perhaps just a tad shorter were there a "T" in there

so, I would not construe that it would be impossible to mistake the endearment for a word ending in ITCH and beginning with B....


but then again, it would all depend on one's knowledge of French...
and from what I remember (correct me if I am wrong) L's foreign languages were generally pretty poor... (and CK's pronunciation worse-OP:3.02)

so I do not really think this one fits as well

Yeah, but considering the person saying the word IS French, then it'll sound right.

There is no way Lois would ever say that to anyone and I don't see Clark using French terms of endearment either.

And yeah, his French sucks, but that's just for lack of a language coach for the actor, CK's French would be nothing short of perfect.

Anyhoo... was gonna add more, but whatever. let's just say it's not 'cause the words sound similar in a different language that one automatically assumes they must mean the same... I could pull out examples from my hat, but I'm a little too exhausted to argue over this.

Hi there -

I'm not a native French speaker, but I think the proper pronounciation (which Claude would use) would sound more like how an English speaker might pronounce "beesh" - so no worries about the bitch connection

happy Wednesday!

Shells

Actually, I went over the see the one French guy from France that works here and had him say it the way they'd say it and you're right -- a real Frenchman would say it more as in 'ee' sound... In my head, the accent sounded different.

Someone from Québec would say it more like the beginning of 'bishop'. (unless I'm mistaken on the pronunciation of that word in English?! I'm not a native English speaker and there are words I screw up pretty badly. *lol*)

Wow, this is quite a debate. Sorry I've missed it! Well since the speaker is Claude, it wouldn't surprise me if he said ma biche without caring whether it sounded like bitch or not to Lois. But to avoid confusement, I'll probably just go with a different term. Thanks for all the help!

oh well, thanks for clearing the pronunciation up Lara

if what you say is right, and: BICHE sounds more like SHEEP than FISH, I agree it would be unlikely for the mistake to occur as opposed to what I said above...

however I think it is wise not to use it, just for the reader's sakes if anything else... I mean how much confusion did it cause here, and we are able to at least come to an agreement .... others may-not have the benefit of this discussion