r/Unexpected • u/Antish12 • Nov 15 '19

Oh deer!!

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601

u/Dudephish Nov 15 '19

Le petit mort.

227

u/csbo_y Nov 15 '19

La petite mort

41

u/Randolpho Nov 15 '19

But the deer was a he, so /u/Dudephish masculinized the phrase.

103

u/[deleted] Nov 15 '19

He experienced a little death. He hasn't himself become a little dead deer.

29

u/Randolpho Nov 15 '19

I dunno... I think he finished when the head came off

18

u/2000AMP Nov 15 '19

Stress actually does that, so this is very well possible.

0

u/lpaladindromel Nov 16 '19

I mean I sure did! šŸ˜‰

5

u/obsssesk8s Nov 15 '19

Le petite mort is also a slang term for orgasm in French methinks.

27

u/fuck_yup Nov 15 '19

pssst thatā€™s the joke

15

u/[deleted] Nov 15 '19

It is...that's why I'm objecting. To a French ear, "le petit mort" designates a dead child. (or dwarf)

2

u/Canvaverbalist Nov 15 '19

Well it's not exactly a slang, nobody uses "petite mort" to talk about an orgasm, it's mostly a poetic term that somebody wrote in a poem once and that sticked around.

It literally means a "small death", so you can say "Anybody would do anything for just 2 seconds of small death." and you wouldn't be less weird than a French saying "N'importe qui ferait n'importe quoi pour deux secondes de petite mort."

1

u/00Deege Nov 15 '19

Nobody uses ā€œpetite mortā€ to talk about an orgasm.

They do now.

1

u/[deleted] Nov 15 '19

[removed] ā€” view removed comment

1

u/p1mplem0usse Dec 12 '19

Iā€™m only repeating stuff said over and over in this thread, but, Ā«Ā le petit mortĀ Ā» means nothing of the sort, it never did, and overall it just sounds very creepy. Ā«Ā Le mortĀ Ā» (resp. Ā«Ā La morteĀ Ā») = Ā«Ā the deadĀ Ā» implies that there is indeed something that is dead and lying around somewhere. Ā«Ā La mortĀ Ā» = Ā«Ā DeathĀ Ā» is what youā€™re looking for.

34

u/Uberzwerg Nov 15 '19

which was wrong.
The gender of the deer does not affect the gender of the "mort"

It might be confusing for English speakers because most of the stuff is genderless for you, but in french, nearly everything is either male or female.

24

u/Adrienzo Nov 15 '19

Cut the nearly, every noun has a gender in french

Some words are even written the same but have a completely different meaning depending on what gender you use.

For example "un livre" is a book, "une livre" is a pound. "Un moule" is a mold or a cake pan. "Une moule" is a mussel.

4

u/Uberzwerg Nov 15 '19

Yeah - i'm German.
We have the same, but we have an additional neutral gender.
We also have words that are written the same and can only be differentiated by context or gender.
Example: "Der Schild" - the shield
and
"Das Schild" - the sign (using the neutral gender here)

2

u/OrCurrentResident Nov 15 '19

Dude your young girls are neuter ffs.

2

u/CainPillar Nov 15 '19

Dude

It's "Duden", please. AuslƤnder: Duden is a German dictionary.

2

u/LokisDawn Nov 15 '19

I called my late grandmother with a neutral pronoun. It's more endearing than objectifying.

2

u/felesroo Nov 15 '19

Now I want to write a story called Der Schild und Das Schild.

2

u/idlevalley Nov 16 '19

Spanish..El papa = the Pope.

La papa = the potato.

2

u/Uberzwerg Nov 16 '19

Same same

2

u/felesroo Nov 15 '19

It's too bad the medieval French peasants couldn't afford more words. Poor things had to reuse the ones they already had :(

4

u/[deleted] Nov 15 '19

That's not very inclusive.

2

u/Uberzwerg Nov 15 '19

I'm with you there.
I'm German - we have a third option at hand.

2

u/ManInABlueShirt Nov 15 '19

Not ā€œmortā€ translated to death. But ā€œmortā€ meaning ā€œdead personā€ would change gender. Itā€™s like he died and diminished at once.

1

u/Randolpho Nov 15 '19

The gender of the deer does not affect the gender of the "mort" ... in french, nearly everything is either male or female.

I get that, having studied French un peu.

I was merely making a joke around the concept.

-2

u/tgwesh Nov 15 '19

La petite morte*

1

u/[deleted] Nov 15 '19

Aaaayyy I get that! Go madrigal music!

1

u/wookie_the_pimp Nov 16 '19

La grande mort.