pardon my French
excuse my bad language
TRANSLATION
pardon my French = entschuldigen Sie meine Ausdrucksweise --- GOOGLE INDEX pardon my French: approximately 150,000 Google hits
STATISTICS
IN THE PRESS
If you can drive around the block of your neighbourhood and park a small car in fair weather, you’re apparently good enough to drive any car in any situation. PARDON MY FRENCH, but that’s just bullshit.
(The Motor Report magazine)
---
"PARDON MY FRENCH, but you're an asshole."
- from the movie Ferris Bueller's Day Off
(The Motor Report magazine)
---
"PARDON MY FRENCH, but you're an asshole."
- from the movie Ferris Bueller's Day Off
Did you
know?
pardon my French
idiom
- said when you are pretending to be sorry for saying a swear word
(Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary)
---
French stereotyping is the root of "pardon my French," an excuse for bad language. The phrase emerged in the 1800s, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, but the practice of using French as an adjective to mean indecent dates back to the 1500s.
Traditionally, the British viewed the French with suspicion and considered them vulgar and rude. To say "pardon my French" is thus to say that you are about to behave as a Frenchman would, i.e. you are about to say something not for polite company.
Here are some additional English phrases which use the word French:
French door = die Fenstertür
French horn = das Waldhorn
French fries pl. [Amer.] = die Pommes frites
French leave = to be absent without leave = ohne Erlaubnis abwesend
---
SMUGGLE OWAD into today's conversation
"Pardon my French, but he's really being a pain the arse."
idiom
- said when you are pretending to be sorry for saying a swear word
(Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary)
---
French stereotyping is the root of "pardon my French," an excuse for bad language. The phrase emerged in the 1800s, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, but the practice of using French as an adjective to mean indecent dates back to the 1500s.
Traditionally, the British viewed the French with suspicion and considered them vulgar and rude. To say "pardon my French" is thus to say that you are about to behave as a Frenchman would, i.e. you are about to say something not for polite company.
Here are some additional English phrases which use the word French:
French door = die Fenstertür
French horn = das Waldhorn
French fries pl. [Amer.] = die Pommes frites
French leave = to be absent without leave = ohne Erlaubnis abwesend
---
SMUGGLE OWAD into today's conversation
"Pardon my French, but he's really being a pain the arse."
