Friday French: The difference between neck, ass and tail.

Neck = le cou (pronounced koo)

Ass = le cul (pronounced kew)

Tail (of an animal) = la queue (pronounced keh) this word is feminine - note the la


Besides obvious things like spelling, you'd be surprised how quickly these three words can be easily mixed up. First of all, you never pronounce the last letter of a word* in French. Take my last name for example: Vérant. When you say it properly, the "t" is silent – pronounced Verre-ahn. Which leads me to the dilemma with the three above words.

That's right, ladies and gentleman, the "l," ending the word cul, is silent.

(*oh yes, there are ALWAYS exceptions).

The problem, and this is an example of MANY**, when you don't pronounce things correctly, if you're trying to tell somebody they have a beautiful neck, "tu as un beau cou," you may actually be saying they have a beautiful tail, which would make sense if they're dressed up as cat on Halloween, or if they're actually an animal...or you may be saying you have a beautiful ass.

Yeah, depending on who you are talking with, this might not go over very well.


Hee-haw. Hee-haw. Then again, you never know.

At any rate, careful with your pronunciations.

Bon weekend, mes amis. À tout à l'heure.

Next Friday: useless letters like h, because who says whore-d'oeuvre?

**I apologize to anybody I've personally offended with my sometimes bastardized French accent.

 

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