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French Word of the Day: Faire l’andouille

The Local France
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French Word of the Day: Faire l’andouille
Photo: Annie Spratt/Unsplash/Nicolas Raymond

You can take doing the sausage too far, you know...

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Why do I need to know faire l’andouille?

What parent doesn’t need to know new and exciting French ways to tell their children to stop messing about?

What does it mean?

Faire l’andouille - fair lann-doo-ee - literally translates as '[to] do the sausage'. It means to mess about, behave like an idiot. Basically, kids/teenagers. Especially boys.

An andouille sausage is usually grey, and is commonly made using the small intestines of a pig and has, let’s say, a distinctive odour. You might think it a little … uriney. So in that sense it's not a million miles from the English phrase 'pissing about' to describe messing around or generally being a fool.

Use it like this

Fais pas l'andouille, ton examen est dans trois jours - Stop mucking about, your exam's in three days! 

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Similar phrases you could use

Faire l'oeuf - mucking around

Faire le jacques - acting up

Jouer au con - playing the fool 

 

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