When someone makes an improbable shot, one often hears "Ho, le cocu!" which literally means "oh, the cuckold" which as you may know is a reference to the cuckoo bird which notoriously dupes other species of bird to care for its young by laying eggs in their nests.
Why this expression? It was explained to me that when something really lucky happens to a man, other men gibe him by saying that it means that his woman is surely being fucked by another man... cosmically all lucky and unlucky events must balance out, you see?
I'm not sure of the accuracy of this account etymologically speaking, but it seems to make sense. I'm sure they rarely think of the literal meaning of the phrase. It's just something you say. When a guy gets lucky, we say "ho, le cocu!" perhaps subliminally tapping into a funny male superstition that whenever things are too good to be true, the chances are someone is fucking your wife.
I asked my French interlocutor if he thought that French people were superstitious, and he responded, "No, we just understand women."
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment