Anyone know french? Crisis averted.

[Ferret]

I need a smidgeon of help for some french homework, I'm making a writing frame for some course work, where I'm writing a letter of complaint in french. I was wondering how you would say 'Pops' in french, as In 'The receptionist called my father "pops".

Any help much appreciated.

 

[randomling]

The closest I can think of is "Papa", French for "Dad". You might need a native French speaker for something more accurate, though.

Calling Gez.

 

[Ferret]

Wouldn't papa be in a non-derrogative way? Yeah we need *Drum roll* GEZ!

 

[Ferret]

Gez, or any other native (or fluent) french speakers, it would be helpful if I could have that word soon. I need it for a french lesson tommorow.

 

[Alhazred]

Perhaps 'vieillard'? It means 'old-timer' or 'old man'. While pops does translate into papa, and papa is overly familiar for a receptionist, it doesn't carry the same (derogatory) emphasis as vieillard, IMO.

PS: I'm an anglophone, but one raised in Montreal/

 

[devilbat]

I don't think there is a french translation for "Pops". I would also suggest using vieillard. It gets the point across fine.

Twelve years of french schooling, and all it's good for is helping out on a rpg site. My mom would be so upset.

 

[Ambrus]

Well, I'm a native speaker of french (an Acadian from New-Brunswick if you're interested). I regularly address my own father as "pap" which is the short form of "papa". I likewise call my mother "mam" (which she hates) as the short form for "maman". It's fairly informal but isn't derrogatory (though neither is "pops" as far as I know). So IMO, pop or pops translates as "pap".

If someone mentioned my "vieillard" in conversation I'd have to ask them who they were referring to, because I've never heard that word used to denote someone's father as such. It's what you'd call an elderly person (who you probably aren't related to, because its kind of rude).

BTW, "pap" phonetically is the same as the french word for the Pope, though spelled diferently; a homonym.

Hope this helps. Good luck.

 

[Ferret]

Thanks, I'll go ahead and make it vieillard.

 

[Turanil]

I need a smidgeon of help for some french homework, I'm making a writing frame for some course work, where I'm writing a letter of complaint in french. I was wondering how you would say 'Pops' in french, as In 'The receptionist called my father "pops".

Any help much appreciated.

The dictionary doesn't translate "pops", so I don't know what it means. Now, "papa" is not derogatory in itself (meaning "dad"); however, if used with a condescending tone by a receptionist of a hotel to an old client not of his family, this IS derogatory. Indeed, this could happen, where a receptionist being arrogant and disrespectful, would call an old client "papa". Now if he wants to be insulting he would said "le vieux" (or extremely worse: "le vioque"). On the other hand, "vieillard" would not be used as a derogatory (or not) word.

So if the receptionist is:
--Mildly arrogant and unpleasant: "papa" (calling someone that name may not be an excuse for firing you, but you get a warning.)
--Arrogant and unpleasant: "le vieux" (calling someone that name could be an excuse for firing you.)
--Insulting: "le vioque" (which is slant in fact, meaning "le vieux", and calling someone that name IS an excuse for firing you.)

 

[Altamont Ravenard]

about le vioque, I have never heard that word (I'm from Montréal, Québec), so I assume it's "french slang" (as is "slang from France") and probably isn't an accepted universal french term. If I had to translate "le vioque" in Québec slang, I'd probably use "vieux schnoque".

All in all, "vieillard" is a perfectly acceptable translation of "Pops".

AR