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From: Rob Warnock on 8 Nov 2009 03:50
webmasterATflymagnetic.com <webmaster(a)flymagnetic.com> wrote:
+---------------
| p...(a)informatimago.com (Pascal J. Bourguignon) wrote:
| > r...(a)rpw3.org (Rob Warnock) writes:
| > > Pascal J. Bourguignon <p...(a)informatimago.com> wrote:
| > > +---------------
| > > | ...strange things may occur in a Common Lisp implementation
| > > | when you evaluate this setq out of white at the toplevel...
| > > +---------------
| >
| > > Aha! Interesting difference in idioms here: in the U.S. one would say
| > > "out of the blue" instead of "white".
| >
| > Well, not being a native speaker, I must have misremembered the idiom.
| > So: s/white/the blue/
|
| Naw -- Europe's cloudier than the US; white skies rather than blue skies.
+---------------

Actually, looking at Wiktionary[1] it would seem that in most European
countries the analogous idiom to the English "out of the blue" has
more to do with "clear sky" rather than "the blue" [albeit clear skies
*are* typically blue], and *not* "white" [though see (Russia#2) below]:

- From clear sky (Germany)

- Like a lightning bolt out of a clear sky (Finland, Sweden)

- Like a thunder {from,in} {the,a} clear sky (Bosnia, Serbia,
Croatia, Lithuania, Russia#1, Iceland#1)

Some more... indirect phrases were also given as alternates:

- Like snow onto the head (Russia#2)

- Like the devil from the sheep's leg (Iceland#2)

Alternatives in English include "out of nowhere" and "[a] bolt from
the blue", the latter being *quite* similar to the Finnish/Swedish,
since "bolt" here means a lightening bolt.

But I'm sorry, Pascal. I couldn't find one that was uniquely French...


-Rob

[1] http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/out_of_the_blue

-----
Rob Warnock <rpw3(a)rpw3.org>
627 26th Avenue <URL:http://rpw3.org/>
San Mateo, CA 94403 (650)572-2607

From: Pascal J. Bourguignon on 8 Nov 2009 05:46
rpw3(a)rpw3.org (Rob Warnock) writes:
> Actually, looking at Wiktionary[1] it would seem that in most European
> countries the analogous idiom to the English "out of the blue" has
> more to do with "clear sky" rather than "the blue" [albeit clear skies
> *are* typically blue], and *not* "white" [though see (Russia#2) below]:
>
> - From clear sky (Germany)
>
> - Like a lightning bolt out of a clear sky (Finland, Sweden)
>
> - Like a thunder {from,in} {the,a} clear sky (Bosnia, Serbia,
> Croatia, Lithuania, Russia#1, Iceland#1)
>
> Some more... indirect phrases were also given as alternates:
>
> - Like snow onto the head (Russia#2)
>
> - Like the devil from the sheep's leg (Iceland#2)
>
> Alternatives in English include "out of nowhere" and "[a] bolt from
> the blue", the latter being *quite* similar to the Finnish/Swedish,
> since "bolt" here means a lightening bolt.
>
> But I'm sorry, Pascal. I couldn't find one that was uniquely French...

I guess the corresponding expression would be "un �clair en plein jour",
which is quite rareley used. (Google finds 13 occurences, of which
only 3 have the English idiom meaning, the others being literal
meaning).

--
__Pascal Bourguignon__
From: Vassil Nikolov on 8 Nov 2009 11:18

On Sun, 08 Nov 2009 02:50:57 -0600, rpw3(a)rpw3.org (Rob Warnock) said:
> ...
> - Like a thunder {from,in} {the,a} clear sky (Bosnia, Serbia,
> Croatia, Lithuania, Russia#1, Iceland#1)

Add Bulgaria to this list.

As a sidenote, there is (at least in Bulgarian) an expression that
literally means "see stars in the middle of a white day", which
refers to the "stars" one "sees" after a strike on the head, but
that is a rather special case of surprise.

---Vassil.


--
"Even when the muse is posting on Usenet, Alexander Sergeevich?"
From: George Neuner on 8 Nov 2009 14:39
On Sun, 08 Nov 2009 03:33:50 +0100, Adam Michalik <dodecki(a)gmail.com>
wrote:

>"webmasterATflymagnetic.com" <webmaster(a)flymagnetic.com> writes:
>
>> Naw -- Europe's cloudier than the US; white skies rather than blue
>> skies.
>
>Surely even grass is greener in the US, am I right?

You mean browner - the US being the source of global warming and
whatnot.
From: Rob Warnock on 9 Nov 2009 23:56
Pascal J. Bourguignon <pjb(a)informatimago.com> wrote:
+---------------
| rpw3(a)rpw3.org (Rob Warnock) writes:
| > But I'm sorry, Pascal. I couldn't find one that was uniquely French...
|
| I guess the corresponding expression would be "un �clair en plein jour",
| which is quite rareley used.
+---------------

My sister (who speaks *much* better French than I!) says that the
Harper/Collins/Robert dictionary lists "coup de tonnerre" -- literally
"a clap of thunder" or "thunderclap", but figuratively meaning
"bombshell", "bolt from the blue", or "thunderbolt". Does that
sound appropriate here?

[A friend of hers also suggested "sans crier gare" -- "without any
warning or unexpectedly" -- but I'm not sure that's quite the same.]


-Rob

-----
Rob Warnock <rpw3(a)rpw3.org>
627 26th Avenue <URL:http://rpw3.org/>
San Mateo, CA 94403 (650)572-2607

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