His Head is WHERE?

French president François Hollande recently introduced legislation that would make modest changes to the country’s labor laws.  This being France, an uproar ensued, with millions joining nationwide demonstrations.  Even the Union of French High School Students (yes, there is one) got into the act.

To placate the protesters, Hollande made a series of concessions.  These diluted the new laws to the point where he shouldn’t have bothered to introduce them to begin with.

Once again, Hollande looks like an idiot.

So when a Le Monde article about the laws made an unflattering reference to Hollande and his “tête-à-queue,” I wasn’t sure what the phrase meant but I could guess.  “Tête” means “head” and “queue” means “tail” so I figured they were saying that Hollande has his head up his you-know-what.

But then I looked up the phrase and learned that it means to reverse direction or to spin around.  It originally comes from when cattle turned around and their heads ended up where their tails used to be. 

Hm, that’s interesting, but I prefer my definition.

This came up today in our weekly French class when the teacher was correcting an essay I had written.  I had described someone turning a camera around 180 degrees and called it a “tête-à-queue.”

“Non, non, non !  Cela n’est pas juste !” said Gisèle.  She explained that the phrase is only used for cars making a U-turn, or cattle turning around, but nothing else.  Then she put a big red X over my offending words.  

This was one of many big red X’s on my essay.  I have a long way to go.

“But wait,” I said, “it was used in Le Monde to mean something else!   Look!”  I showed her the article, which I had with me.

This lead to a lot of harrumphing.  Gisèle was forced to admit that Le Monde is a pretty good citation.

Then she pulled out her thick Le Petit Robert dictionary and looked up the phrase.  She pointed to it triumphantly.  The definition was a little ambiguous but seemed to support her position. 

We were deadlocked.

But two can play this game.  So I pulled out my Larrouse dictionary and showed her its definition.  As with the Robert it was somewhat ambiguous but this one seemed to support my position.

Now it was 2-1 Keith and I was feeling pretty good.  I’d finally won one!

Then Gisèle announced there was one final arbiter – the Académie Française.  Yes, the Académie, the group that rules on all matters of French language.  A group so august that its members are called Immortals.  

It seems they have a dictionary and Gisèle is going to consult it, then tell me the results when we meet next week.  She seemed pretty confident.

I have the feeling that I should enjoy my victory while I can.