Talk:toujours perdrix

@Equinox this article says it's used by German people only; I've certainly never heard it or read it. Compare cause célèbre, which isn't used in French. --Barytonesis (talk) 13:33, 18 November 2017 (UTC)

I learned it from the "foreign phrases" appendix of the Chambers Dictionary. If it's really rubbish then I guess we can delete it, or rather mark it as "bad French" like nom de plume. Equinox ◑ 22:32, 18 November 2017 (UTC)

RFV discussion: August 2018

The following discussion has been moved from Wiktionary:Requests for verification (permalink).

This discussion is no longer live and is left here as an archive. Please do not modify this conversation, but feel free to discuss its conclusions.

---

toujours perdrix

Doesn't seem to be used in French; pseudo-French used in German. Per utramque cavernam 11:22, 2 August 2018 (UTC)

My entry. Admittedly I learned the term from a multilingual appendix of "famous sayings" (or something) in Chambers Dictionary — mostly Ancient Greek and Latin. So what language is it? Equinox ◑ 20:43, 2 August 2018 (UTC)

Entry converted to German, along the lines of vox populi vox bovi. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 20:52, 2 August 2018 (UTC)

By google books this could be English or German. Considering the source ("Chambers Dictionary"), the created entry might rather be English than German. Furthermore:

• duden.de and dwds.de don't have this, while www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/toujours%20perdrix and www.dictionary.com/browse/toujours-perdrix do
• German could have two types of wordings, a phrase and a substantive (as in: "das toujours perdrix", "dem Toujours perdrix")
• Here's a Frenchy text, though with "toûjours perdrix".

-19:25, 3 August 2018 (UTC)

I wonder, could the anecdote recounted in that 17th-century French book be the source of the German saying?  --Lambiam 20:32, 6 August 2018 (UTC)

zeno.org - Meyers Großes Konversations-Lexikon: "angeblicher Ausspruch eines Beichtvaters Heinrichs IV. von Frankreich" - "alleged saying of a confessor of Henry IV. of France [to Henry IV. (1553-1610)?]". Wouldn't be unlikely that this (alleged) saying is the source.
Notes and Queries (1869, p. 336f.) gives this as the source for the English saying: "...a saying which I see in italics in every novel and newspaper in England ... it is unknown in France" and "... we read the story on which it is founded in English. ... The confessor of one of the French kings ... he complained: "Mais toujours perdrix!" ...". -21:33, 6 August 2018 (UTC)