In my never-ending quest to improve my French, I had some friends over for dinner last night and was asking them what the word 'grue' meant.
After consulting le dictionnaire français (aka: mon ma bible), the only definition we came across was that a grue was a 'crane'—as in the long-limbed bird.
Curiously, it's sometimes used a slang for a 'working woman', if you know what I mean. Or one who is 'facile'.
So how does any of that relate to ground up cocoa beans?
euhm, 'grué' (with accent aigu) refers to cocoa beans and 'grue' (without accent) is what you looked for in the dictionnary... ;-)
"Grué"
Feves de cacao sechees, degermees, decortiquees et concassees grossierement.
Il existe 2 types de grué: le grué vert non grille et le grué torrfie, grille.
ps: oh, and it's 'ma bible'... :-P
Oops!
Well, grué isn't in my dictionnaire normal but I'll add that to my dictionnaire culinaire.
btw: Here's an interesting description of the accent aigue. Since symbols need to be HTML'd, unless you type in the html for the symbols, it looks like mixed-up symbols on my blog. (Apologies to French readers, and merci for the corrections and advice.)
Now if someone could just tell me how to fix that in Movable Type!...
Darn those all caps!!
And here I thought maybe this cacao was so good you'be be willing to sell your body for it!
I'm French and I've just learned a new word. Thank you all! (Sigrid, I think that grué is not in many dictionaries. It's not in "Le Petit Robert" for a start.)
Véronique: Well, it's not in my Robert Pratique either, which boasts 120,000 traductions.
I say we storm the Académie Française first thing monday morning—en masse!
You reminded me of when I was telling a neighbor, newly from Japan, that certain parts of the city had hookers. Her English / Japanese dictionary told her that there were trawling ships in downtown Seattle.
David, you can write accents even in html using these codes...here
:-)
I've been where those cocoa beans are grown, its about an hour drive from my house :D
Thanks for the lesson I've learnt 2 words today. I remember in Spain a friend of mine confusing pato (duck) with puta(whore) causing much consternation in a restaurant we frequented.
Gideon: I'm not sure I understand—which of the two were you trying to order??
dodo: Lucky you! Those are great beans.
Sigrid: Believe it or not, I dream in html. (I know it that well!)
But thanks for the link for readers who wish to comment using accents and the like.
Lynn: hmmm...I wonder why so many words 'sound' like words for 'working women' in so many different languages?
I guess no one's immune to the effects of globalization
: )
LOL! Just wanted to comment that this section of comments greatly amused me! Thanks for the wit and the laughs! :)