<p>Bonjour…
Who can help with this translation? I just bought a cool new scarf from Target (pronouce that Tar-jhay for this question), and when I got it home I realized it has French words printed on it in a cool scrawled printing.</p>
<p>Here’s what it says:</p>
<p>Aimer la via</p>
<p>Laisser le vent de changement prend la prise des vos ailes de papillon.</p>
<p>I can’t quite figure this out, despite five years of French class. What is via in the first line? It seems like it should be “vie.”</p>
<p>Does the second line mean “Let the wind of change take place like the wings of a butterfly”? </p>
<p>Hi bookiemom,
you’re right, it is made-up french with misspelling and errors… and both lines carry no meaning. First line would have made sense but the subject is missing and complement “via” is misspelled. As for second line, I do not see any connection between the wind and butterflies although it sounds or tries to make it sound poetic to create a metaphoric expression.</p>
<p>First line: Oohh la la, just love to shoe shop on those streets in Italy!</p>
<p>Second line: Let the winds of change air out your underarms! A la sante, et puh, la vache!</p>
<p>I think I will design a scarf with an illustration of Babar and Celeste waving with their handkerchiefs from the montgolfier, and write in twee cursive:</p>
<p>Au Revoir, les plus grandes metaphores de socio-fascisme et de grand Guignol! C’est vrai que grandpapa va mourir en mangeant des champignons mauvais!</p>
<p>(all of this is so much fun, AnudduhMom is committing much exclamation point abuse!!)</p>
<p>Wait–play fair, anudduh*mere! What does your tres amusant parody mean?</p>
<p>Goodbye, the biggest socio-fascist mataphors and the grand Guignol (puppet character?). It’s true that grandfather is going to die from eating bad mushrooms! </p>
<p>Short story is – there is a very serious theory (in l’Humanite or someplace) that the themes in the Babar books (you know, the sweet story of the noble and well-dressed elephant), specifically the social set-up, or “Utopian framework of a model society” represent de Brunhoff’s sly introduction to small French children into fascist ideology. </p>
<p>Anyway, I was trying to be funny, about the completely random writing on your scarf as a parallel to the conclusions of some French post-modern philosophy. </p>
<p>(AnudduhMom’s liberal-arts brain-dump is the unfortunate result of over-education and some time on my hands, so my apologies)</p>
<p>Oh, and I one of the most frightening things that I remember from reading these books to my kids is that one of the elephants dropped dead from a “bad mushroom” – plenty of folks in France still hunt for wild mushrooms, not to mention truffles, so that’s about as scary as the Snow White witch with the poison apple.</p>
<p>Oh, please don’t apologize. I have enjoyed this. I’m so sorry I didn’t continue studying French or keep up with it in some way. </p>
<p>I never liked the Babar books, though my mother did and read them to us frequently. I did know that the books aren’t p.c. these days. I did try to read one or two to my D–but someone was shooting some poor animal so I quit that tout de suite.</p>
<p>With the benefit of having studied exactly as much French as the “author of the scarf” apparently has (namely, 6 weeks at age 12), I render the quotation as:
“Love the journey. Let the wind of change catch you as it catches the wings of a butterfly.”
Probably as good as any. Maybe it’s not actually French?</p>
<p>Too funny about the grandfather eating the mushroom! I’ve had shirts with English words where I had no idea what the words meant. You know, the kind of cute t-shirt with random words like “Chocolate” and so forth and names of towns like “Venice” as if all these words thrown together turn a t-shirt into something very chi chi. I personally want a career naming nail-polish or lipstick colors which I am convinced are random words thrown together that say nothing about the actual color – e.g. Monte Carlo Smoke or Heather Whisper.</p>