Has anyone got better documented origins for the word? Improve this question. The French equivalent pejorative name for the Brits is rosbif literally roast beef. Can one of the site usage luminaries here tell me why this is reopened? In Paul Kingsnoth's novel of the Norman conquest of England, The Wake , it is mentioned in conversation among characters that the clean shaven French invaders look like frogs , suggesting a tongue in cheek, no doubt potential origin for the term.
Add a comment. Active Oldest Votes. The moral of my song is that best name is the name we give ourselves. Improve this answer. Lambie Lambie Half your comments are incomprehensible and the other half are irrelevant: the question is not etymological.
The French author of the Le Figaro article clearly is better informed than you are. And I think the two French authors I quote are more relevant than anything else here. Fair enough. Minor nitpick about your more than welcome translation: the bits in quotes should preferably remain untranslated, the translation can be given in [brackets] — vectory. Lambie— Sorry this might sound a bit too much forward but could you review a word flash fiction story? I have just one point to ask about and I hope it won't be much trouble with you.
I'll take a look Show 1 more comment. Extended uses applied colloq. A person likened to a frog. Usually as a term of abuse. Usually derogatory. Frequently with capital initial. A French person or a person of French descent; occasionally as a form of address.
The French language. The earliest citation for sense 10a is from Sir W. D'Avenant First Days Entertainm. Rutland-House 55 Your Kitchins are well lin'd with Beef;.. It might be coincidence, but Given "Dutch", and "marshy low-lying nature" cp "Friesland", or Freesch in their West Frisian Platt read: -sh ; consider Ger Frosch instead of frog for comparison.
Know Franks have inhabited parts of todays Netherlands. Platt itself is supposedly a Frankish loan, or at least a Frankish loan word. This prophecy of Nostradamus he died in was applied to this event in a somewhat roundabout manner. Sara is Aras backward. By the ancient toads were meant the French, as that name formerly had for its armorial bearings three of those odious reptiles instead of three fleur-de-lis which it now bears.
The obsolete noun Froglander originally denoted any foreigner , but it came to be specifically applied to any Dutch person. Like this: Like Loading Follow Following. Sign me up. Already have a WordPress. Log in now. Post was not sent - check your email addresses! How often they eat them I am not sure, possibly more are eaten by curious foreigners. Why would we call the French Frogs just because they occasionally eat them? I suppose the Germans are sometimes called Krauts and is that to do with Sauerkraut?
The French were probably not the first people to eat Frogs, In fact we Brits were cooking and eating them long ago. One reference to the French eating them is the story that is often quoted which is that Catholic monks were not allowed to eat meat on certain days but could eat fish so they managed to get Frogs classified as fish, and were thus able to have something a little meaty every day of the week.
However many nationalities eat frogs, after all they are common, relatively easy to catch and are a source of protein so it stands to reason that they would be consumed.
I would guess that the French eat more snails than they do frogs so perhaps we should call them Escargots. I therefore think that the origin of the French being known as Frogs is not because they eat them, though the fact that they do, may have added to usage of this term.
Of course using the word Frog as an insult is also strengthened by the spelling, both frog and French begin with the same two letters so the term French frogs trips off the tongue more easily. Another possible origin is that the term Frogs was used to describe the people of Paris by courtiers at the Place of Versailles.
In the Dictionary of Phrase and Fable of by E. At the time the area where Paris is now located was known as Lutetia which means Mud-land and it was surrounded by swamps. So the occupants lived like Frogs and toads in the swamp. The French nobility that would visit Versailles apparently tended to refer to Parisians as frogs because of the swampy surroundings…and only later did the term get picked up to describe the French in general.
As a possible counter attack by the Parisians they coined the word frog as a putdown for non-Parisians. The sophisticated urbanites sneered at the rural taste for amphibians and attached the term to everybody but themselves, which is to say the bulk of the national population.
Possibly the most likely cause of the term relates to heraldry and here there are two lines of thought. One relates to King Clovis who had three frogs or toads on his heraldic shield and flag, at least he did until he converted to Christianity when he adopted the Fleur-de-lis. It is possible that Nostrodamus was the first person to refer to the French in amphibious terms. Sara is Aras spelt backwards, so Nostradamus got a bit muddled but Clovis did have three toads on his shield and that refers to the Ancient Crapauds and the French ancient crapauds did take the French city of Aras from the Spaniards albeit somewhat later under Louis 14th.
Also it is crapauds which is toads and not frogs but its in the right direction. The French flag then had a blue background with gold fleur-de-lys on it. The ignorant English, not knowing that the fleur-de-lys was supposed to be a flower, though that it represented a gold frog.
Given that the English and the French have been in conflict on and off throughout history… OK we love them now but if we vote to leave Europe hopefully not then how many years before we revert to the default position and end up in conflict again.
I am rambling, my point is that soldiers always adopt derogatory terms for their enemies, I wont list all the insults we have thought up for all our foes but I am sure you can think of many.
So it is most likely that English soldiers in the past would have invented names for the French and the most likely inspiration for their insults would be what they saw in front of them and that would be the flags, standards and heraldic shields that would adorn the enemy. Frogs, Toads, Fleur de Lis…. Another story relates to Queen Elizabeth I, to who was extremely fond of dancing.
At the time dances involved quite a lot of leaping up. English courtiers were envious and started using the term as a deprecatory term for all French men. She though would frequently apply the word affectionately to her close friends.
Also, for a brief time she was about-to-be-engaged to the youngest son of Henri II, the Duke of Anjou. He was 24 and Elizabeth was A few believe this nickname was attributed to a frog-shaped earring he had given her. Of course, that union came to naught since Elizabeth never did marry.
In the course of researching this I came across a few odd ball suggestions and here is one. On balance I think the most likely explanation is that the origin goes back to the middle ages and it was a term adopted by our soldiers. Subsequently it has been enhanced by the French liking for frogs legs, but I do not think main explanation. December 24, at pm. FYI, heraldry had not yet been invented in the time of Clovis. Since in the later Middle Ages and the Renaissance it was inconceivable for a king not to bear a coat of arms, they were invented for him centuries later.
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