Talk:putain de merde

Notes from the entry

The following notes were in the middle of the entry. Perhaps some of this material can be used, but it will definitely need summarising and reworking. Equinox ◑ 22:45, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

Literally 'Whore of shit', where 'putain(e) de' is used to indicate the worst extreme of an example, where an American would say 'fucking'. For example, French 'putain de voiture' translates as 'whore of [a] car', where Americans would say 'fucking car'. The Parisian vernacular pronounces this as three syllables - putain d'merde - similar to how many American regional dialects say "fuckin'" rather than pronouncing the final 'g'. For reference, see the French girl assisting Harrison Ford in "Frantic", who says 'Oh, putain d'merde!' during the film in her apartment.

Bordel de merde - literally 'whorehouse of [a]' has the same general connotation - the worst extreme of a case. The concatenation of these two terms is most famous from "The Matrix: Reloaded", where the character known as the Merovingian swears in French as "Nom de Dieu de putain de bordel de merde de saloperie de connard d'enculé de ta mère!'.

'Nom de Dieu' is literally "Name of God", where an American would say "God Dammit". A 'saloperie' is a dirty trick. 'Connard' is used like the American 'asshole' - figuratively, not literally. 'Enculé', root word 'cul' meaning 'asshole', literally, means sodomized, fucked in the ass.

In the movie, the native French-speaking actor playing the Merovingian ad-libbed this phrase when asked to swear in French, which the Wachowski Brothers liked so much that they added it to the script. An approximate American version would be "Goddammit, fucking piece of shit, fucking asshole, fuck your mother in the ass." In French, as he says, "It's like wiping your ass with silk."

Right it's not a bad translation, but you cannot just translate french word for word, it just doesn't work like that. The translation would be "godamn fucking load of shit, <no translation of saloperie, closest would be fuck up> asshole, mother fucker. Enculé with the accent is past tense, so means fucked, as in fucked of your mother .