I was looking at this text by Boris Vian: "Il était une fois un prince beau comme le jour. Il vivait entre son chien et son cheval, à l'orée d'un bois, dans un château aux murs gris et au toit mauve..." And the phrase "à l'orée d'un bois" stumped me. Went to the dictionary and found "edge or verge of a wood or forest". Now verge had me. I guess one can be on the verge of the woods. (A verge was originally a staff of authority that was transfered to their jurisdiction.) The French word, though it looks a lot like "breaded and fried" or "golden", is not from Latin aurum 'gold' but from Old French ours. not 'bear', but 'margin' edge' from Late Latin ora 'edge'. This is just the sort of word one would imagine coming across in Derrida or the like, but no, good old fashioned pseudo-Märchen theatre of the absurd instead. "Once upon a time there was a prince, handsome as the day. He lived between his hound and his horse, at the verge of a forest, in a castle with gray walls and a mauve roof ..."



Ceci n'est pas un seing.