Méchant beau char
In entry #684, a girl exclaimed celui-là est malade! as she pointed to a famous building made of Mega Bloks at a centre d’achats (shopping centre).
Although the literal meaning of malade is “sick,” it meant “awesome” or “amazing” when the girl used it to describe the Mega Bloks display.
Way back in entry #267, Hugo from the television show La Galère uses the word écoeurant to describe his new appart (informal word for “apartment” which sounds like the English word “apart”).
The literal meaning of écoeurant is disgusting, but this word can also take on the meaning “awesome” or “amazing.” So when Hugo says that his appart is écoeurant, he means that it’s amazing… not disgusting!
In La Galère, Hugo also says that he’s going to get une job écoeurante, “an amazing job.”
Ken asks whether méchant has this double meaning as well. Recently, I saw a sign for a lost dog in my neighbourhood. The owner of the dog was offering une méchante grosse récompense to the person who could return his dog to him.
The literal meaning of méchant is “wicked,” but, on the sign for the lost dog, it takes on a positive sense (an amazingly big reward, a wicked big reward).
Celui-là est malade!
That one’s awesome!
un appart écoeurant
an awesome apartment
(and not “a disgusting apartment”)
une job écoeurante
an amazing job
(and not “a disgusting job”)
une méchante grosse récompense
an amazingly big reward
Interesting–“wicked” and “sick” are both certainly words with similar double meanings in English, too!
But I haven’t heard an English person say ‘disgusting’ and mean ‘amazing’…yet… Merci, c’est très intéressant.