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Glossary entry

French term or phrase:

baiser les babouches

English translation:

humiliating oneself

Added to glossary by kashew
Sep 18, 2011 19:08
12 yrs ago
1 viewer *
French term

baiser les babouches

French to English Other Idioms / Maxims / Sayings
Hello,

I'm trying to find a rough English equivalent for this phrase as the literal translation (kissing the slippers) doesn't really help. The sense I get is that it is to do with bootlicking or fawning over someone

Below is an example taken from today's edition of Le Monde. (France's Economy Minister is criticizing members of the Socialist party who attended La Fete de l'Humanite).

Proposed translations (English)
3 +2 humiliating oneself
5 +2 brownnosing
3 +2 kowtowing
4 kissing ass/kissing butt
4 -1 prostrating themselves before
3 to grovel in front of someone
2 -1 kiss one's ring
Change log

Sep 19, 2011 00:21: Yolanda Broad changed "Term asked" from "baiser les babouche" to "baiser les babouches"

Sep 21, 2011 07:37: kashew Created KOG entry

Discussion

Bourth (X) Sep 19, 2011:
My apologies to M. Mélenchon for suggesting that use of babouches might have been a racial slur intimating he is Muslim. If any such slur was intended, it was presumably an anti-Semitic one, in the broadest sense, since some claim he is Jewish.
And as we know, despite their Semitic communality, Jews and Arabs are worlds apart, including in the colours of their babouches:

Concernant la differenciation entre les juifs et les non juifs, autrefois, cette distinction se faisait à partir de la couleur des babouches que chacun devait porter. C'est ainsi QU'ON RECONAISSAIT LES JUIFS À LEURS BABOUCHES NOIRS, les chorfas à leurs babouches blanches, et LE RESTE DES CITOYENS MAROCAINS À LEURS BABOUCHES JAUNES( du moins dans la ville de marrakech)
http://www.marocantan.com/2006/01/intrieur_juif_m.html
Kevin SC Sep 19, 2011:
Cheers. Looks like it might have been.
Bourth (X) Sep 18, 2011:
@Kevin SC Put it there!
Bourth (X) Sep 18, 2011:
Is this an, if not racist, then "originist" comment? Wikipedia tells us that Jean-Luc Melenchon was born in Tangier, Morocco. I suppose "kissing his feet" would give him a Christ-like stature ... Ah, culture, culture, and the problems it causes, however thinly spread!
Kevin SC Sep 18, 2011:
Maybe Mr Baroin used babouches because Mr Mélenchon was born in Tangiers ?
Kevin SC Sep 18, 2011:
Here's what I found in the papers : Le projet économique socialiste pour l'élection présidentielle de 2012 est bon à jeter à la poubelle", a estimé, tout en nuance, dimanche le ministre français de l'Economie. François Baroin a par ailleurs jugé "surréaliste" la venue de trois candidats à la primaire PS à la Fête de l'humanité. Ils ont baisé les babouches de [Jean-Luc Mélenchon] en se faisant insulter et en disant merci. Un bon résultat", a-t-il ironisé. Un style plutôt direct sur fond de scandales financiers.
jmleger Sep 18, 2011:
In arab cultures this was/is a sign of allegiance to the ruler, just as kowtowing was in China.
Catharine Cellier-Smart Sep 18, 2011:
if your text is between <> we don't get to see it...
Bourth (X) Sep 18, 2011:
Is there an Arab connection? In which case something specific might be required.

Proposed translations

+2
23 mins
French term (edited): baiser les babouche
Selected

humiliating oneself

French also says: baiser le babouin = bootlicking
Peer comment(s):
agree Yolanda Broad : bootlicking
4 hrs
Thanks
agree Catharine Cellier-Smart : bootlicking
9 hrs
Thanks
Something went wrong...
4 KudoZ points awarded for this answer. Comment: "Merci!"
+2
5 mins
French term (edited): baiser les babouche

kowtowing

in the sense of bootlicking, I would say. Hope the spelling is OK.
Peer comment(s):
agree jmleger : i would go with that. In China it meant bowing to the emperor.
20 mins
indeed it did. Thanks JM !
agree Ben Gaia : Yes, this is the polite version, see my suggestion for the ruder one.
1 day 22 hrs
thanks Ben
Something went wrong...
+2
15 mins
French term (edited): baiser les babouche

brownnosing

A more PC version might be "fawning"

François Baroin was being very childish...

--------------------------------------------------
Note added at 17 minutes (2011-09-18 19:26:11 GMT)
--------------------------------------------------

the Arab connection relative to 'slippers' is probably not innocent either, but is too nauseating to bother with
Peer comment(s):
agree piazza d
8 mins
neutral jmleger : I don't see brownnosing in a political context. And the "arab connection" has to do with our special knowledge of these cultures. It's "natural" for us, as it would be for an Englishman to use a deference term used in the Raj.
24 mins
I would normally agree with kowtow - but I had already read the article !! The political context is truly bare knuckle fighting, spit and sawdust (unfortunately).
neutral Catharine Cellier-Smart : I don't feel this is the correct register for the article
9 hrs
agree B D Finch : Hyphenated, I think: brown-nosing, though the following reference doesn't hyphenate it. http://money.howstuffworks.com/brownnosing.htm
13 hrs
Something went wrong...
-1
11 hrs

prostrating themselves before

No?

--------------------------------------------------
Note added at 12 hrs (2011-09-19 07:12:01 GMT)
--------------------------------------------------

www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/article3941450...
16 May 2008 – First it was Kennedy... now the US media are prostrating themselves before the saviour. Gerard Baker

Here we have a suitably (?) Arabic one :
Narrated Qays ibn Sa'd: I went to al-Hirah and saw them (the people) PROSTRATING THEMSELVES before a satrap of theirs, so I said: The Apostle of Allah (peace_be_upon_him) has most right to have prostration made before him. When I came to the Prophet (peace_be_upon_him), I said: I went to al-Hirah and saw them PROSTRATING THEMSELVES BEFORE A SATRAP of theirs, but you have most right, Apostle of Allah, to have (people) PROSTRATING THEMSELVES BEFORE YOU. He said: Tell me , if you were to pass my grave, would you prostrate yourself before it? I said: No. He then said: Do not do so. If I were to command anyone to make prostration before another I WOULD COMMAND WOMEN TO PROSTRATE THEMSELVES BEFORE THEIR HUSBANDS, BECAUSE OF THE SPECIAL RIGHT OVER THEM GIVEN TO HUSBANDS BY ALLAH.
http://www.searchtruth.com/book_display.php?book=11&translat...

www.postzambia.com/post-read_article.php?articleId=7552 - Cached
29 Mar 2010 – ZANAMA women PROSTRATING THEMSELVES BEFORE Vice-President George Kunda at Kitwe's City Square during the MMD card renewal exercise yesterday ...

And here a couple of suitably political ones:
www.democraticunderground.com › Discuss - Cached
11 Sep 2009 – I am SO FUCKING TIRED of Democrats PROSTRATING THEMSELVES BEFORE these cretins

www.daylife.com/quote/0gWo7kIevNdpf?q=Democratic... - Cached
By PROSTRATING THEMSELVES BEFORE Barack Obama eighteen months before the 2012 election, the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) has effectively told the president ...

Peer comment(s):
disagree Ben Gaia : too wordy
1 day 11 hrs
I'd expect nothing else from a taciturn West Coaster! Where have you been? We've missed you.
Something went wrong...
-1
22 hrs

kiss one's ring

Another possibility. I am not an English native speaker, so not sure at all. But I think there is a hommage-paying/swearing fealty to a superior power aspect here, so I suppose you could say the socialist candidates came to the Fête de l'Huma to "kiss Mélenchon's ring".
Peer comment(s):
disagree Ben Gaia : has a very rude meaning in American English
1 day 21 mins
neutral Bourth (X) : Yes, I was about to say, where Ben and I come from this has a very different "ring" to it!
1 day 2 hrs
Something went wrong...
11 hrs

to grovel in front of someone

especially if the text is the one suggested...

--------------------------------------------------
Note added at 11 hrs (2011-09-19 07:05:05 GMT)
--------------------------------------------------

or even FAWNING

--------------------------------------------------
Note added at 1 day12 hrs (2011-09-20 07:21:47 GMT)
--------------------------------------------------

sucking up to
pandering to
Peer comment(s):
neutral Bourth (X) : "Sucking up to" is good but might not "go down" too well with some socialists right now. Ben non!
1 day 14 hrs
neutral Ben Gaia : Yes, that's a different affair altogether.
1 day 14 hrs
Something went wrong...
1 day 23 hrs

kissing ass/kissing butt

Kissing ass/ Kissing butt. NB This is the rude US version of brown-nosing, which is the rude UK version of bootlicking. Both are common usage however in the US.
Something went wrong...
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