I just finished reading George Simenon’s 1931 novel Le Pendu de Saint-Pholien, the fourth adventure of the famous commissaire Maigret. It spans 122 pages in the “Tout Maigret” edition from Omnibus and took me 18 days of occasional bedtime reading to get through. I noted 78 unfamiliar words as I read. I’ve posted them below, with links to definitions from Linguee and word frequencies from Google Books NGram Viewer.
The novel is only OK, at best. It’s got a murder, two suicides, extortion, forgery, a secret society, assumed identities, and just a soupçon of anti-semitism. Plus, part of it takes place in Germany, so you get Simenon’s impression of that country in 1931 – an interesting time in Franco-Prussian relations. On the whole it’s not much of a mystery, more like a convoluted tale of Bohemian youth gone wild that Maigret happens to stumble upon long after the fact. There’s no sense of danger and little intrigue. But I still have no hesitation about turning the page and diving into the next novel in the tome.
The unfamiliar words are disproportionately about poverty: worn out fabrics, falling apart shoes, cheap suitcases, dilapidated shacks, dirty neighborhoods, ruffian children, low quality merchants. Also a moderate amount of industry: torches, saws, acid baths, printing presses and workshops. There’s a little bit at the other end of the wealth spectrum: flowery scarves, bribed high officials, fancy cars, banking deals, patented systems, savored brandy. And finally there’s a lot of highfalutin descriptions: chiseled features, fleshy limbs, jerky movements, burnished tables, crimson faces and so on.
Here’s the list, sorted by modern word frequency. Recall that the value is estimated by counting all words in all French books Google knows about in the given decade. For comparison, the masculine definite article le occurs with a frequency of 1 in 60, while all the union of all articles (le, la, les, un, une, de, des) taken together account for 1 in 8 words. I don’t have on hand the estimate of what number of distinct French words have a frequency greater than 1 in N, but I’m interested in finding that distribution at some point.
| expression (root) | Frequency in 2010 | Frequency in 1970 | Frequency in 1930 |
|---|---|---|---|
| bassin | 1 in 36,700 | 1 in 25,600 | 1 in 24,700 |
| combinaison | 1 in 47,000 | 1 in 36,400 | 1 in 30,600 |
| maintes | 1 in 68,400 | 1 in 45,500 | 1 in 37,200 |
| trame | 1 in 84,500 | 1 in 110,000 | 1 in 144,000 |
| sanguine | 1 in 99,000 | 1 in 86,600 | 1 in 52,600 |
| revers | 1 in 105,000 | 1 in 105,000 | 1 in 108,000 |
| ébaucher | 1 in 126,000 | 1 in 77,500 | 1 in 74,000 |
| friser | 1 in 159,000 | 1 in 158,000 | 1 in 124,000 |
| sangle | 1 in 255,000 | 1 in 264,000 | 1 in 239,000 |
| butin | 1 in 261,000 | 1 in 267,000 | 1 in 262,000 |
| huissier | 1 in 263,000 | 1 in 176,000 | 1 in 122,000 |
| éparpiller | 1 in 266,000 | 1 in 391,000 | 1 in 402,000 |
| âpre | 1 in 277,000 | 1 in 186,000 | 1 in 122,000 |
| morne | 1 in 287,000 | 1 in 216,000 | 1 in 148,000 |
| hétéroclite | 1 in 325,000 | 1 in 621,000 | 1 in 901,000 |
| pignon | 1 in 398,000 | 1 in 386,000 | 1 in 233,000 |
| échevin | 1 in 416,000 | 1 in 207,000 | 1 in 159,000 |
| saccade | 1 in 426,000 | 1 in 554,000 | 1 in 465,000 |
| humer | 1 in 452,000 | 1 in 642,000 | 1 in 607,000 |
| parvis | 1 in 532,000 | 1 in 820,000 | 1 in 767,000 |
| boyau | 1 in 576,000 | 1 in 631,000 | 1 in 427,000 |
| breveté | 1 in 594,000 | 1 in 487,000 | 1 in 294,000 |
| honnir | 1 in 622,000 | 1 in 1,000,000 | 1 in 924,000 |
| charnu | 1 in 632,000 | 1 in 508,000 | 1 in 331,000 |
| encastrés | 1 in 730,000 | 1 in 549,000 | 1 in 427,000 |
| cambrer | 1 in 749,000 | 1 in 1,210,000 | 1 in 1,070,000 |
| espiègle | 1 in 753,000 | 1 in 2,000,000 | 1 in 1,640,000 |
| frileux | 1 in 759,000 | 1 in 1,490,000 | 1 in 1,250,000 |
| fourgon | 1 in 787,000 | 1 in 1,010,000 | 1 in 907,000 |
| jonc | 1 in 892,000 | 1 in 589,000 | 1 in 475,000 |
| taudis | 1 in 906,000 | 1 in 561,000 | 1 in 529,000 |
| chope | 1 in 927,000 | 1 in 2,730,000 | 1 in 3,080,000 |
| cramoisi | 1 in 936,000 | 1 in 1,210,000 | 1 in 738,000 |
| fatras | 1 in 992,000 | 1 in 887,000 | 1 in 757,000 |
| écheveler | 1 in 1,010,000 | 1 in 1,060,000 | 1 in 977,000 |
| glaise | 1 in 1,010,000 | 1 in 821,000 | 1 in 728,000 |
| copeaux | 1 in 1,040,000 | 1 in 706,000 | 1 in 758,000 |
| quincaillerie | 1 in 1,180,000 | 1 in 738,000 | 1 in 1,470,000 |
| fusain | 1 in 1,370,000 | 1 in 1,980,000 | 1 in 1,330,000 |
| sommier | 1 in 1,400,000 | 1 in 988,000 | 1 in 1,060,000 |
| cabanon | 1 in 1,450,000 | 1 in 3,710,000 | 1 in 3,590,000 |
| camelot | 1 in 1,450,000 | 1 in 1,190,000 | 1 in 954,000 |
| astiquer | 1 in 1,690,000 | 1 in 2,260,000 | 1 in 2,880,000 |
| pègre | 1 in 1,700,000 | 1 in 2,210,000 | 1 in 4,490,000 |
| canif | 1 in 1,720,000 | 1 in 1,740,000 | 1 in 1,440,000 |
| miteux | 1 in 1,820,000 | 1 in 3,910,000 | 1 in 8,080,000 |
| brocanteur | 1 in 1,920,000 | 1 in 2,290,000 | 1 in 1,880,000 |
| échancrer | 1 in 1,960,000 | 1 in 644,000 | 1 in 373,000 |
| buriner | 1 in 2,140,000 | 1 in 2,270,000 | 1 in 2,340,000 |
| s’emballer | 1 in 2,160,000 | 1 in 11,500,000 | 1 in 11,100,000 |
| pelisse | 1 in 2,170,000 | 1 in 1,680,000 | 1 in 1,070,000 |
| chalumeau | 1 in 2,190,000 | 1 in 1,030,000 | 1 in 808,000 |
| ventru | 1 in 2,200,000 | 1 in 1,550,000 | 1 in 1,010,000 |
| grisettes | 1 in 2,420,000 | 1 in 2,730,000 | 1 in 1,740,000 |
| fadeur | 1 in 2,450,000 | 1 in 1,330,000 | 1 in 865,000 |
| ramage | 1 in 2,520,000 | 1 in 1,680,000 | 1 in 1,160,000 |
| lascar | 1 in 2,560,000 | 1 in 5,810,000 | 1 in 7,400,000 |
| effilocher | 1 in 2,730,000 | 1 in 3,070,000 | 1 in 3,900,000 |
| genièvre | 1 in 2,910,000 | 1 in 3,420,000 | 1 in 2,360,000 |
| lutrin | 1 in 3,440,000 | 1 in 3,600,000 | 1 in 2,600,000 |
| capharnaüm | 1 in 3,670,000 | 1 in 26,600,000 | 1 in 25,500,000 |
| rabot | 1 in 3,770,000 | 1 in 1,770,000 | 1 in 2,070,000 |
| papier de soie | 1 in 4,540,000 | 1 in 6,740,000 | 1 in 3,870,000 |
| s’amorcer | 1 in 4,640,000 | 1 in 3,180,000 | 1 in 7,530,000 |
| enchevêtré | 1 in 6,850,000 | 1 in 6,780,000 | 1 in 5,270,000 |
| rapin | 1 in 7,260,000 | 1 in 4,310,000 | 1 in 2,510,000 |
| lavallière | 1 in 12,500,000 | 1 in 12,400,000 | 1 in 13,000,000 |
| empeigne | 1 in 14,500,000 | 1 in 10,800,000 | 1 in 7,260,000 |
| émerillon | 1 in 17,300,000 | 1 in 15,300,000 | 1 in 14,600,000 |
| varlope | 1 in 18,800,000 | 1 in 15,300,000 | 1 in 10,500,000 |
| oxhydrique | 1 in 67,600,000 | 1 in 36,200,000 | 1 in 13,500,000 |
| T.S.F | 1 in 97,800,000 | 1 in 311,000,000 | 1 in 104,000,000 |
| gueuse-lambic | None | 1 in 8,600,000,000 | 1 in 2,270,000,000 |
Word notes
- lambic is a kind of beer that ferments spontaneously. gueuse-lambic is a mix of old and young lambics – two great tastes that go great together, apparently.
- une empeigne is the leather upper of a shoe. Turns out there’s a whole lot of parts to a shoe, whose names I don’t know even in English.
- un varlope and un rabot are two kinds of planing tools for woodworking. I had some trouble understanding from the definitions how they differed, and apparently it’s subtle. I stumbled upon Rabot ou varlope? , which you can consult for details.
- une grisette is a condescending term for a low-class shop girl or other under-employed young woman who is generally considered sexually available. This character and characterization was fairly well established in French culture, art, and literature for a couple hundred years, including learned debates around what did and did not make one une grisette. Ick.
- un camelot is a street merchant of cheap manufactured goods. According to Wiktionnaire, the etymology comes from the Arabic word for the animal – “camel”. This is the modern evolution of the itinerant desert trade. I don’t think there’s any connection with King Arthur’s castle. The name Camelot appears in medieval French romances, and there is a Roman ruin named Camuladonum which is thought to be the origin of that.
- écheveler is to cause something to become disheveled. We need an English word for that. I guess the best we have is “rumple”, though I suppose you can use “dishevel” as an active verb.
- sanguine is a reddish color, but also a sketch made with a crayon of that color.
Common words, uncommon meanings
- un bassin means a basin or cistern, but here it was used in the anatomical sense to refer to the collection of bones that make up the pelvis. The Bohemian youth keep a display skeleton around their attic hangout for who knows what reason.
- une combinaison is a combination in the mathematical, or a coordinated outfit in fashion, but also means a scheme or an arrangement for accomplishing something vaguely shady.
- la trame is the thread that goes back and forth on a loom – the “woof” in English. It is also used to mean a web of activity going on around someone/something. But in this novel it is used in describing someones clothing, so worn that you could see individual threads.
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