Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2010/03/24
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]Le 24 mars 10 ? 14:41, Mark Rabiner a ?crit : >> > > > I thought je ne sais pas' meant something like "that certain > something" > je ne sais quoi Mark, pas pas (not pas). Quoi means what, something, etc. French is (yet) another strange language, negative forms initially used ' ne ' (as/like you did not in English -> je ne sais = I know not in OE). Later on 'pas' was added (which actually means a step and comes from je n'avance pas, *I take no step*, or 'plus' (not any more - je ne t'aime plus) , or jamais (n/ever, on ne sait jamais = you never know) . And today, 'ne' is falling in disuse, and only the second part remains. *je sais pas, *j'aime plus,* je vais jamais All this applies to spoken language, of course. "Je ne sais quoi" should in fact read: " je ne sais pas quoi" I don't know what and is an old-hat poetry trick structure except in : elle a un certain je ne sais quoi ... she has that certain something ... which also translates as elle a du chien, literally she's got some dog ...) Barked live from Babel Europe Back to the studio. Bien amicalement Philippe > [Rabs] > Mark William Rabiner > > > > > _______________________________________________ > Leica Users Group. > See http://leica-users.org/mailman/listinfo/lug for more information > NO ARCHIVE