French Phrase of the Day: Mettre la pâtée
A metaphor ideal for a sporting or political context with a history lesson attached.
Why do I need to know Mettre la pâtée?
Because there can never be enough imaginative ways to say your favourite sports team or athlete beat / stuffed / cheesed / walloped / pulverised / powdered / shellacked their most recent opposition.
It could even be used in a political context in cases of a landslide victory.
What does it mean?
Mettre la pâtée translates as ‘[to] put the mash’, and is the French equivalent of beat to a pulp, to smash, to rip-apart - words and phrases often used in sports reporting to indicate a convincing victory or performance.
More interesting, perhaps, is its claimed derivation, which - according to some - takes us all the way back to Joan of Arc and the 100 Years War. After the French cavalry’s humiliation at Agincourt in 1415, morale in the French army was low.
Enter Jeanne d’Arc, whose faith reinvigorated the troops of Charles VII, who killed or captured 2,500 English soldiers at the cost of just 100 of their own troops. That battle took place near Orléans, in the town of Patay. You can probably see where this is going.
This landslide victory gave rise to the expression “mise la Patay”, to describe a landslide victory - which, over the centuries, became pâtée.
Of course, that could all be apocryphal (a lot of French expressions are said to derive from either Joan of Arc or Napoleon) … But it’s a nice story.
Use it like this
France est en train de mettre la pâtée aux les Gallois - France are crushing the Welsh right now
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Why do I need to know Mettre la pâtée?
Because there can never be enough imaginative ways to say your favourite sports team or athlete beat / stuffed / cheesed / walloped / pulverised / powdered / shellacked their most recent opposition.
It could even be used in a political context in cases of a landslide victory.
What does it mean?
Mettre la pâtée translates as ‘[to] put the mash’, and is the French equivalent of beat to a pulp, to smash, to rip-apart - words and phrases often used in sports reporting to indicate a convincing victory or performance.
More interesting, perhaps, is its claimed derivation, which - according to some - takes us all the way back to Joan of Arc and the 100 Years War. After the French cavalry’s humiliation at Agincourt in 1415, morale in the French army was low.
Enter Jeanne d’Arc, whose faith reinvigorated the troops of Charles VII, who killed or captured 2,500 English soldiers at the cost of just 100 of their own troops. That battle took place near Orléans, in the town of Patay. You can probably see where this is going.
This landslide victory gave rise to the expression “mise la Patay”, to describe a landslide victory - which, over the centuries, became pâtée.
Of course, that could all be apocryphal (a lot of French expressions are said to derive from either Joan of Arc or Napoleon) … But it’s a nice story.
Use it like this
France est en train de mettre la pâtée aux les Gallois - France are crushing the Welsh right now
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