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Joined: Feb 2008
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old hand
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old hand
Joined: Feb 2008
Posts: 1,067 |
is canardous 'ducklike', then?
I thought canardous was a near synonym for obfuscatory. It is from the Canard duck, yes, but it has a metaphorical meaning. I'm not sure why, but a Canard is a piece of misinformation, a hoax or a 'red herring' that leads people to go off on all sorts of tangents. It could, as Dzhaymz has intimated, have an obfuscatory result. Usually those annoying emails that keep circulating contain one or more canards - you know the ones that end with some kind of guilt trip about passing it on to the rest of the world. Canards also regularly appear in urban myths or incorrect etonyms. Here in Australia we have a slang term 'furphy' that is pretty much a synonym of canard. [Furphy n, pl - phies Austral slang a rumour or fictitious story [from Furphy, an Australian manufacturer of water carts in WW1] - Collins Compact Australian Dictionary A couple of Dictionary definitions of canard: Collins Australian: "A false report" [French: a duck] Concise Oxford: "A false report; hoax..." [F, = duck]
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Joined: Apr 2000
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Carpal Tunnel
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OP
Carpal Tunnel
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that's all well and swell, but I was actually enquiring about the French canardous , if it really exists. to wit, does it mean ducklike? - joe (quack) friday
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Joined: Aug 2005
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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I was actually enquiring about the French canardous, if it really exists
No, because the examples given in the Google Books results you link to are not from French, but from Provençal (or some other Langue d'Oc). There it seems to be what in French is canardeau which is duckling.
Ceci n'est pas un seing.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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canardousHe has the head of a bear, the wings of a bird, the feet of a duck, a pig's tail, the body of a dog, the mane of a lion. He eats vegetables, meats. He steals , jumps, walks. He sleeps in the snow. He is pink and violet. [when I was a child I spake like a child]
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Carpal Tunnel
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thank you jim.. and BranShea!
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