vendredi 11 septembre 2009

"to do"-- mais pas comme "faire"

Bien que le verbe “to do” soit plutôt une expression que l’argot, je veux le partager quand même parce que je me suis rendu compte qu’on l’utilise souvent. Évidement, c’est l’équivalent du verbe « faire » en français, mais je parle d’un autre usage. Du temps en temps on dit « do » pour dire « be good enough » (d’être assez bon). Par exemple, dans la chanson de Dashboard Confessional « Saints and Sailors » (une chanson qui est vraiment, vraiment magnifique, à propos), il dit :

« And I’m throwing away the letters that I am writing you, because they’d never do, they would never do… »

« Et je jette dans la poubelle tous ces messages que j’ai écrit pour toi, parce qu’ils ne feront jamais, ils ne feront jamais » (mais vraiment il veut dire « parce qu’ils ne sont pas assez bons »).

Et quelques autres exemples, on dit les choses simples comme :

« That’ll do » ou « That just won’t do! »

4 commentaires:

Audrey a dit…

Hello, just to thank you to make this blog. It's really nice.

I have a question about a word. I sometimes heard some people say "score". What does is mean in french?

Sorry for my bad english. I'm french.

Mmaxence a dit…

Hy, I'm a french guy. I just wanted to tell you that we have the same expression in french. When you say "That'll do"... Us, In french we say "ça le fait" !! ^^ it's funny or fun...(well, we can't write funny without a name after? anyway...sorry)
I've just discovered your videos on Utube and this blog, thank you SO much, cause I ve to go to USA into 2 weeks, so i can learn some words before to go. It's cool to know the "argot" of a country !!!

Marie-Laure a dit…

Merci beaucoup pour cette explication. Je suis francaise et je vis depuis 3 ans en Californie. Mon anglais c'est bien ameliore mais je ne comprend pas tout encore.

Romain a dit…

Ohai !

Like Mmaxence, I'm a french guy, and I really like speaking/reading english stuff.
About this note, I'd like to add some content : I'm watching House MD all six first seasons, and quite often, House says "We save lives because that's what we do", or something.
It supports your point that it's used when people are good at what they do.
When he says that, well, I didn't saw vf/vostfr episodes, but I'm pretty sure that its translation is "Nous sauvons des vies parce que c'est notre job/boulot". Where "job" here, means what it means, but it's used as an anglicism, and it's now part of french slang, and "boulot" is like the previous word used in such a case (but still used).

I heard somewhere that "to do someone" is actually "sleeping with someone", or "to hit someone", is that right ? It would be another use for this word.
If this is right, the french translation to this is, pretty close to the one Mmaxence guessed, "se faire quelqu'un". And that, sir, is a hell of a slang (=~not really respectful, near vulgarness to me) =p

Well that's a necropost, but I hope it helps, see ya !