First, wwh, I do want to give you credit for being the only poster on AWAD who's ever used qui vive, at least as far as the search took me.
Qui vive is the word of the day on one of mailings I receive. The definition is "lookout; alert" and the example sentence (very roughly paraphrased) is "Marcy was always on the qui vive for shopping bargains."
I love the sound of this phrase. Is it pronounced "key VEEVE"? If not, how should it be pronounced?
Thanks,
WW
Is it pronounced "key VEEVE"? If not, how should it be pronounced?
Since Latin is a dead language there is no way of corroborating the correct pronunciation of its words. However, modern usage would suggest that it be pronounced "key vee-veh" or "key vee-vay".
Since Latin is a dead language
Ummm, while there may be some difference of opinion on whether French is a language, it's certainly not dead.
Well, it's not spoken on a daily basis as a common dialect. I'm not denying that it has derivatives and that it is used, variously, for saying Catholic mass, naming species and by scholars and blowhards to impress the less educated but it is not a commonly used conversational language and is, so, dead.
Funny how the French are getting a raw deal these days. But not on this side of the pond.
Funny how the French are getting a raw deal these days. But not on this side of the pond.
Qui vive is French. It is pronounced <kee veev>. We may knock the language on *this side of the pond, but at least we give credit where credit is due.
Excuse my ignorance. I thought it was Latin. I know French but I have never come across that phrase before - not in th context which WW defined above.
not in the context which WW defined above
It got mangled a bit in its transit into English. The story from the M-W word of the day is:
When a sentinel guarding a French castle in days of yore cried, "Qui vive?" your life depended upon your answer (the right one was usually something like "Long live the king!"). What the sentinel was asking was "Long live who?" but the act of calling out apparently impressed English listeners more than the meaning of the phrase, because when they adopted it in the early 1700s they used "qui vive" in the sense "alert." Nowadays, it is most often used in the phrase "on the qui vive," meaning "on the lookout."
Last night in looking for "longeur" I found it in an essay by Goerge Orwell, written about 1960,
in chich he discusses among other failings of the European intellectuals, Anti-Americanism.
Very good reading, sounded as though it had been written yesterday.
> I found it in an essay by George Orwell, written about 1960,
in which he discusses among other failings of the European intellectuals, Anti-Americanism.
So he was anti-anti-Americanism eh? That must run in the family.
Dear sjm: You have the advantage of me. The Animal Farm guy is only one of clan I
have ever heard of. There is much that the movies peddle as American
culture that I despise. There are indeed ugly Americans. I can understand the lack of
enthusiasm for war with Iraq. If Colin Powell really favored it, I'd buy it. Maybe the
CIA has a mole in Iraq government. Let us hope that is where the bellicosity comes
from.
Dr. Bill, it was joke based on Orwell's real surname.
Dear WW: I had completely forgotten "qui vive" and looked it up. I then encountered a
bit of etymology about "a gogo" which might interest you. From takeourword.com issue 45:
Scroll down three quarters of the way:
http://www.takeourword.com/Issue045.html
Couldn't we somehow work the following into a poem or limerick:
qui vive
oi vey
on the QT
sjm, what *is Orwell's real last name?
With sjm's clue, I found:
"The British author George Orwell, pen name for Eric Blair ,
achieved prominence in the late 1940's as the author of two
brilliant satires. He wrote documentaries , essays, and criticism
during the 1930's and later established him as one of the most
important and influential voices of the century.
"On each landing, opposite the lift shaft, the poster with the
enormous face gazed down from the wall. It was one of these
pictures which are so contrived that the eyes follow you about
when you move BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU, the caption beneath ran." - from Nineteen
Eighty-Four"
So he was anti-anti-Americanism eh? That must run in the family. *Now I get it!
