One of the most delightful books I have ever read in French is named Les Mots et la chose–“Words and The Thing.” “The thing” is a euphemism for “sex.” The conceit of the book is that an actress who earns her keep by dubbing pornographic movies has grown weary of the limited vocabulary that her job calls for, so she writes to a retired linguist who specialized in words for la chose to ask for suggestions. He comes through in spades, with separate chapters for all of the relevant body parts, and of course for l’acte itself. My favorite: Le détroit des Dardanelles, the Strait of the Dardanelles, for that part of your body where poo comes out and where, between friends, other things might occasionally go in.
I keep seeing all of these articles in the paper about how to fight coronavirus-quarantine-related boredom. I don’t get it–I haven’t been this busy in ages. Telecommuting; reminding my father to eat, to take his medicine, and to let me do his laundry; making masked food runs to the grocery store; eating half of a chocolate babka in a single day (damn it, Zipf); sitting on the front porch smoking cigarettes and petting the dog–I barely have time to learn my 10 words per day of French vocabulary.
Of course, none of that has stopped me from spending inordinate amounts of time looking up French-language covers of classic American songs. For example, Fiche le camp, Jack is a cover of Hit the Road, Jack, a favorite from before my childhood (and hence, a long fucking time ago). A cover differs from a dubbed version in that where dubbing involves an original video version whose audio track is replaced, a cover is a de novo production. So, if there is a video involved, too, then it will be shot anew for the new version.
So, the above-mentioned French actress is dubbing movies so that they have a French-language soundtrack, while the video below shows a version of Hit the Road, Jack, nicely covered by Richard Anthony and some great back-up singers. I hope that it brings a smile to your quarantine day. Scroll down for the English notes if you are so inclined–today we will talk about some idioms involving the verb to hit, as well as discuss American Evangelical beliefs about what’s going to happen to us sinners.
English notes: idioms involving the verb to hit
In the following examples, note that hit is an irregular verb: its present tense, past tense, and past participle are all hit.
to hit the books: to study.
I can’t go to the party tonight–I gotta hit the books.
Gotta is colloquial language for to have to.
to hit the road: to leave.
This has been a great party, but it’s time for me to hit the road–I gotta go study for my stupid linguistics exam.
to hit bottom: to reach a/the really terrible part of your life. It is often used in conjunction with alcoholics and drug addicts–the belief is that before you can get dry (alcoholics)/clean (drug addicts), you have to “hit bottom.”
God had left her alone with the sinners, so she would sin. But, she hit bottom after going on a drunken binge with two men she met at a Catholic-sponsored conference on Poverty in the World of Change. She woke up naked in a hotel bathtub.
—The Forsaken, Book Two of The Apocalypse Trilogy. This is an amusing series of American Protestant fundamentalist fiction about The Rapture, an event in which non-sinners will be whisked up to Heaven, while the rest of us are left on Earth. (I think that we get damned to eternal Hell at some point.) The extract is fascinating to me, in that in three short sentences it evokes so many of the tropes of American Protestant fundamentalism: anti-Catholicism, resistance to social services for the poor, and of course loathing of sex.
to hit the sack: to go to bed.
I’m gonna hit the sack–I’ll study for that stupid linguistics test tomorrow.
to hit the hay: to go to bed.
Well, Jack finally hit bottom. He went to the party, but he hit the road early to go home and hit the books. But, instead, he hit the hay and didn’t study at all. So, he flunked the test, which dropped his final grade in the course, which dropped his overall GPA, so he lost his badminton scholarship. He went to his professor and asked him to raise his grade, but his professor said “Surely my course isn’t the only one in which you earned a lower grade than you needed? Why not go to one of your other professors, and ask them to raise your grade?” I guess you gotta hit bottom before you get sufficiently motivated as to get your shit together.
I have changed some details to protect the guilty. But, yeah–I was the professor.
Zipf's Law 