Insectophily

Idioms. There could be loads of posts in this blog about metaphors and other typical idioms that constitute and enrich our languages. There is one, though, that I have used recently in the office and which generated general amazement around me.

Frenglish or sexual harassment?

In an ambition to enlighten the conversation with striking images, I translated the French idiom "enculer les mouches", literally "Fly Fucking". My colleagues knew all about French people being renowned for their romantism, eventually their menage-a-trois... But they were suddenly afraid that a zoophile might be working next to them.

Facing bodging eyes, I had to explain the image, the metaphor. A fly-fucker is someone who likes to complicate things... If you think a moment of the abilities, skills and organs it would require to perform such a Kamasutra trick, you can easily understand the origin of this expression.

A fly in your life.

So yes, once in a while you can have an affair with one of these insects, just for the sake of making things more complicated. But no matter how complicated things could become, there is always an interesting outcome. Unless you try to hard, because then, the complexity overcome the mind twisting pleasure, and you end up with “une araignee au plafond” (“a spider on the ceiling”, or “mad”) like the beloved Nietzsche.

But to finish on this animal touch, I would like to leave you with a proverb created by Louis-Ferdinand Celine:

"Beaucoup de Vaseline, encore plus patience, Eléphant encugule fourmi"
(Loads of Vaseline, even more patience, and finally the Elephant manages to fuck the ant).

It takes what it takes... in the wild world of precision.