Mike Ward is a comedian from Québec. Here’s what he tweeted on 15 July:
Pu de batteries AA pour ma souris, j’en ai patenté une avec une batterie AAA et du papier d’alu… MacGyver serait fier de moi.
Out of AA batteries for my mouse, I improvised one with an AAA battery and some tin foil… MacGyver would be proud of me.
1. pu de
This is an informal pronunciation of plus de, as in “no more left (of something).” For example, y’a pu d’lait is an informal pronunciation of il n’y a plus de lait.
2. une batterie
In French everywhere, une batterie refers to the battery of a car. In Québec, batterie can also refer to household batteries used in gadgets, like an AA or AAA battery — une pile. It’s in this sense that Ward used it.
3. patenter
The verb patenter here is used in the sense of inventing or concoting stuff, à la MacGyver. In this case, Ward says that he improvised an AA battery.
Patenter in this sense is a québécois usage. In an Urbania article, we find this example of use: patenter une app, which means “to come up with an app,” but more in the sense of concocting one.
4. du papier d’alu
Alu is an informal short form for aluminium.
How do you say AA and AAA?
Une batterie “double A” ou “triple A”, je pense.
Une batterie «deux A» ou «trois A», dans mon cas.
deux A, trois A
Have you ever done a post on “en”? I’m confused about when to do “j’en’ whatever and when I just say “je” and the verb. Appreciate help, links, et j’en passe! 🙂
I was just thinking of writing about that…
In j’en ai patenté une, the en is like “of them.” –> I invented one (of them). You can’t say
j’ai patenté unein French like you can in English.j’ai patenté une batterie
j’en ai patenté une
We can look at this in a future post.
Merci. Appreciate the info.