Another vocabulary question...

Does anyone know how to say MSG in French? MSG, is the seasoning that goes in to a lot of Chinese and Vietnamese foods.

Whiile on the subject of translations, somebody recently asked for the word for trailer trash. According to my friend, who was a prof of French Lit. at the University of Bordeaux, the word is plouc.

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Glutamate de sodium.

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I may be wrong but I thought it was glutamate monosodique.

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I think %26#39;trailer trash%26#39; might be difficult to translate correctly. The word %26#39;forain%26#39; is in the right direction, but that word doesn%26#39;t have all the other connotations associated with %26#39;trailer trash%26#39;. Maybe %26quot;racaille%26quot; (or in Verlan, %26quot;caillera%26quot;) is closer?

See this page: %26quot;French word of the day: Plouc%26quot;, which describes %26#39;plouc%26#39; as %26quot;country bumpkin, hick%26quot;.

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Bonjour Phread,

Shoesy is right is it glutamate de sodium. It always give he an instant headache.

Have a look at the office de la langue française.

http://tinyurl.com/5prxd

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I don%26#39;t think plouc quite gets the sense of trailer trash. A %26quot;hick from the sticks%26quot; is not necessarily trailer trash, which I think has much more a sense of coarse and vulgar than simple-minded or uneducated.

On the previous thread I too was tryiung to come up with something like racaille, and tongue-in-cheek suggested %26quot;racaille des remorques%26quot; but I doubt that would be understood in French in the same way that trailer trash is in American English.

How about poissard?

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Phread %26amp; Irish,

I don%26#39;t know poissard. %26quot;Plouc%26quot;, on the otherhand, I%26#39;ve been using for years. G%26#39;s ex-partner who had a graduate degree in medieval French (how marketable is that????) taught G that word many years ago, and G taught me. We use it to mean %26quot;common%26quot;, but not where we%26#39;d use %26quot;trailer trash%26quot;. Let%26#39;s keep searching....

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Bonjour l%26#39;ami D.

In order to find %26quot;trailer trash%26quot; we could listen careful to the dialogues of the last French movie called %26quot;Camping%26quot;

http://www.camping-lefilm.com/site.htm

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I%26#39;d like to know if you find a translation of trailer trash! That seems like such an American word, I can%26#39;t imagine that it would translate...I%26#39;d like to add that to my French vocabulary, though.

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BTW, to a New Yorker MSG is not only the food additive; it also stands for Madison Square Garden.

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I knew that y%26#39;all%26#39;d have a nice debate over the garbage. I%26#39;d love to debate it, but I am feeling like a French guy who has dedicated his life to the study of literature and who%26#39;s idea of a great night out is hunkering down with some English lit. knows of what he speaks. Just to be sure, I passed it by a French Philosophy prof. who is recently back from a few years teaching at Cornell and after a 30 minutes debate of the term plouc and the various connotations he concurs.

Racaille won%26#39;t work because a nouveau riche could never be racaille, but could certainly be plouc, or trailer trash.

But go ahead, knock yourselves out, I am loving this.

Thanks for the term Shoesy, oui wee and Lucky I am going to give it a try at the local Chinese.