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4 things to learn in French from 1 Mike Ward tweet (#644)

16 July 2013 by OffQc

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.

@MikeWardca

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Posted in Entries #601-650 | Tagged AA, AAA, app, application, batterie, battery, français québécois, MacGyver, Mike Ward, mouse, papier d'aluminium, patenter, patenter une app, pile, Québécois French, souris | 7 Comments

7 Responses

  1. on 16 July 2013 at 11:13 Jenna

    How do you say AA and AAA?


    • on 16 July 2013 at 11:16 Luke Zhou

      Une batterie “double A” ou “triple A”, je pense.


    • on 16 July 2013 at 12:37 Ian

      Une batterie «deux A» ou «trois A», dans mon cas.


    • on 16 July 2013 at 13:24 OffQc

      deux A, trois A


  2. on 16 July 2013 at 13:08 Janet Aldrich

    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! 🙂


    • on 16 July 2013 at 13:28 OffQc

      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 une in 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.


  3. on 16 July 2013 at 16:11 TEC4

    Merci. Appreciate the info.



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