How do you say that, by the way...?

Aulx.

What's an aulx ? It's obviously something you eat because the Israelites were nostalgic about the food in Egypt, the melons, leeks, cucumbers and the aulx.

Anyway it's garlics. un ail, des aulx.

Pronounced unnaye (like "aye" for yes) and dézo (sounds like eaux, or "oh!").

It took me six months to discover how to say one garlic and two years to discover the plural.

I am just not right for this job, am I !

Comments

Emmanuel said…
Thanks for that, it took me nearly 32 years to discover the plural of "ail". Never heard of it, I don't think it is used by anyone, and I can't imagine in which context you would use it. Are you sure of your facts?
9:59 am
Alan said…
Nombres 11:5 Nous nous souvenons des poissons que nous mangions en Égypte, et qui ne nous coûtaient rien, des concombres, des melons, des poireaux, des oignons et des aulx.

You have NO IDEA how reassuring your comment is !
10:05 am
Emmanuel said…
Which version are you using? Just checked Colombe and Nouvelle Bible Second. They both use l'ail. think ail is one of these nouns like sheep or people in English who don't have a plural.
10:32 am
Alan said…
Genève 1979.

The French guys last night all seemed pretty unfazed by the word aulx.

(Not that I am implying that you're not French or anything.)

It's probably a word that is slipping out of the language but that now will stay forever inscribed uselessly in my memory.
12:10 pm
Emmanuel said…
Did they know what it meant though? Did you ask them? If not, ask a them, to see if they understand. Maybe they did not bother asking what it meant. You don't need to understand every single world of a text to understand what it is about.
3:35 pm
Alan said…
Oh yes - certainly Cédders and Nat knew what it meant, and possibly the others, too.

Mind you, I should have known what it meant because we all know what the Israelites missed about Egypt - apart from the brickmaking, that is. Free food, including garlic.
3:58 pm
Anonymous said…
Just a thought.... what if the 'x' is silent, while it probably is anyway, it would then sound like 'melons, leeks, cucumbers and all!' I think I've got it sussed.

I don't think I'd have done too well in Egypt as, apart from the fact that I don't know how to make bricks, (Ve hav vays of teaching you! (but in Arabic)), I'm not that fond of salads and melon, apart of course from 'melon de Charente' though I could soon get pretty sick of those. Leeks of course, are lovely fried in butter. What IS cholesterol?
7:35 pm
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