Blogger
2014-10-09 16:04:27 UTC
Shhhh. Librarians are famous for saying it. Along with its onomatopoetic
cousins Hush and Shush, as well as the similarly sibilant Shut up (or
Shutty, Shut your mouth, Shut your face, etc.), it means "Be quiet"
or "Keep still." (Generally, those variants that include the word shut are
not always considered the nicest ones, but they certainly have their place.
I even thought of a new one: Shutten your lip. Feel free to use it!) Every
language has its ways of conveying this command and an understanding of
those ways could prove useful while traveling abroad. Romance languages
employ a sound that's rather akin to Shh: in Spanish it's chis or chito; in
French it's chut; in Italian it's sst or zitto. German and Dutch librarians
hiss Pst! or Sch! at unruly patrons who fail to observe the peace and
quiet. I seem to recall hearing Ferme la bouche used in French class, but
have since learned that that's incorrect and is rarely said by the natives.
The polite form, it appears, is Tais-toi, whereas Ferme ta gueule is
downright gauche. A commenter on Wordreference writes: "It's a kid's way of
telling someone to shut up." Another one says: "Sometimes you will hear
Ferme la bouche! for Ferme ta gueule! from people who try not to use rude
words." Often (and perhaps it's to obscure le différence?) the phrase gets
shortened to Ferme-la. So when visiting France, before you open your mouth
to ask where the library is ("Où est la bibliothèque?" being one of the few
other phrases en français I can remember from school), make sure you know
the proper way to request that your fellow bibliophiles please keep it
down. Given that we have already blogged here about silence, our typo for
the day is French + Franch (for, in most cases, French). We found 21 of
these in OhioLINK, and 392 in WorldCat.
(An Asian woman wearing headphones and putting a finger over her lips, 19
January 2008, from Wikimedia Commons.)
Carol Reid
--
Posted By Blogger to Typo of the day for librarians at 10/08/2014 05:00:00
AM
cousins Hush and Shush, as well as the similarly sibilant Shut up (or
Shutty, Shut your mouth, Shut your face, etc.), it means "Be quiet"
or "Keep still." (Generally, those variants that include the word shut are
not always considered the nicest ones, but they certainly have their place.
I even thought of a new one: Shutten your lip. Feel free to use it!) Every
language has its ways of conveying this command and an understanding of
those ways could prove useful while traveling abroad. Romance languages
employ a sound that's rather akin to Shh: in Spanish it's chis or chito; in
French it's chut; in Italian it's sst or zitto. German and Dutch librarians
hiss Pst! or Sch! at unruly patrons who fail to observe the peace and
quiet. I seem to recall hearing Ferme la bouche used in French class, but
have since learned that that's incorrect and is rarely said by the natives.
The polite form, it appears, is Tais-toi, whereas Ferme ta gueule is
downright gauche. A commenter on Wordreference writes: "It's a kid's way of
telling someone to shut up." Another one says: "Sometimes you will hear
Ferme la bouche! for Ferme ta gueule! from people who try not to use rude
words." Often (and perhaps it's to obscure le différence?) the phrase gets
shortened to Ferme-la. So when visiting France, before you open your mouth
to ask where the library is ("Où est la bibliothèque?" being one of the few
other phrases en français I can remember from school), make sure you know
the proper way to request that your fellow bibliophiles please keep it
down. Given that we have already blogged here about silence, our typo for
the day is French + Franch (for, in most cases, French). We found 21 of
these in OhioLINK, and 392 in WorldCat.
(An Asian woman wearing headphones and putting a finger over her lips, 19
January 2008, from Wikimedia Commons.)
Carol Reid
--
Posted By Blogger to Typo of the day for librarians at 10/08/2014 05:00:00
AM
--
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