Saturday, February 06, 2010

French for Today

I haven't done these for a while because it's been a while since I learned a new one that I liked. However...

Biner (tr verb)
1. To hoe, to cultivate, to work over the soil.
2. To say two masses in the same day.

4 comments:

Holly said...

The word itself isn't very exciting to look at, but the combination of the two definitions cracks me up. I always feel that English is a little deprived, in that it seems there aren't as many words that can really multitask like this.

Rufus said...

That's what I liked. I also really like that they have a word for saying two masses in one day. It's a bit like 'prorogue'- who knew there was a word, but I'm glad there is.

Anonymous said...

Well, in defense of English, there’s “cleave” — meaning both “cut apart” and “join with,” depending on the context. Not as good as biner, I admit....

Rufus said...

It's interesting to watch people who are learning English because you remember how confusing things like blue bird versus bluebird and polish versus Polish can be. By comparison, French is pretty easy to read, but I did have a French researcher at the archives admit to me that it's unnecessarily difficult to speak.