After a hectic summer, I'm back into book reading mode for the book club organised by one of our Anglo/French groups.Apart from two of us, all those involved are French. Fortunately most have some English, which means there is always something in that language within the monthly book selection. From my point of view it's fun to read in both languages.
On our reading list for dicussion in November three books - Le Vieux que ne voulait pas fêter son anniversaire/Jonas Jonasson, Train de nuit pour Lisbonne/Pascal Mercier and Oscar Wilde's Happy Prince. Fortunately all of them are available on Kindle. It's a cracking selection, but I'm not sure if I'll managed to get through them all. I read more slowly in French. Sometimes it's the meaning of a particular phrase that is trickier to grasp and I have to re-read it. Sometimes I'll come across an expression in French, with an equivalent in English, but rather than a straight translation, the terminology is completely differently.
Occasionally there are phrases where the context offers immediate understanding, but I stop because I want to find out more about it. I had one of these a couple of days ago.
English has various expressions such as dressed to the nines, dressed to kill, which describe someone's appearance when they look particularly fashionable or going somewhere special. As I've just discovered, the French equivalent is Etre sur son trente-et-un or se mettre sur son trente-et-un/ to put on his thirty-one. What's interesting is that both languages use numbers to express the same idea.
From what I can find out the French term, it comes from the word trentain which refers to a luxury fabric, but there is also a military connection with 31 representing dress uniform. We have a french neighbour who is in the military so when I can, I'll ask him.
As to where dressed to the nines comes from, the link here offers some possibilities.
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