Fun With Words

Some words seem to move between languages. Others don't. The use of Citroen in reference to a car really surprised me Mr Lawson talks about PSA Peugeot Citroen's "well positioned.... mix and technology perspective".

Citroen is fairly close to how you spell lemon in French. In fact I wasn't sure if it was exactly the same or not. According to my Petit Robert it's close but not the same. And none of the definitions of Lemon came close to a dud car. I thought maybe it was used in Quebec and looked it up in a online Quebecois dictionary. No listing.

I'm not bothered by this. I think it's interesting and a bit amusing. Maybe Lemon (for a car that is a dud) isn't used in UK. Or it may be that they aren't worried about all that many British citizens picking up the French.

So many English words make entrance into other languages because English used so much. I'm not sure that is good and i know there are movements against that. I was surprised that the word turned up with regard to a consumer product. I guess the fact that there is a Lemon Party of Canada (Parti Citron) should have alerted me. But if anything i took it to be part of how they named themselves...and with the Lemon Party who knows...

(Le Parti Citron is similar to the Rhinoceros Party of Canada. They didn't run candidates in the last election (they missed the filing date by a day they said, if memory serves), but you they still turn up now and then in Quebec election coverage.