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One Hundred


Christine Animal

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Sorry if this has already been covered, but it may help some of the newcomers.

I have noticed that English people when writing one hundred, on a cheque for example, often put "un cent".  Cent never has "un" in front of it, it is just cent, cent euro (some put an s on euros, some don't saying it has Greek origin and doesn't take an s).

Cent euro is one hundred euro

but for two hundred, three hundred, etc. cent takes an s

Cent

Deux cents

Trois cents, etc.

but when there is something after the trois cents (say three hundred and fifty), the s on cent is dropped :

Cent trente euro

Deux cent quarante

Trois cent cinquante.

 

I hope I managed to explain clearly 

 

A hundred can also be "une centaine" :

There were a hundred people.  Il y avait une centaine de gens.

But you can also say "il y avait cent personnes" !  

 

 

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[quote]Sorry if this has already been covered, but it may help some of the newcomers. I have noticed that English people when writing one hundred, on a cheque for example, often put "un cent". Cent never h...[/quote]

Absolutely right Fantine those .....aines mean about. The rule about the "s" after cent on its own does not apply to mille though or milliard.

Glad to see that Les Anglais are actually writing any numbers in the first line of a cheque.  I wasted loads of cheques getting out of the habit of writing the payee first English style

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Yes, I thought about that too Fantine before putting it.  It is often used for about.

I have just looked in my dictionary which says :

Centaine : groupe de cent unités, ou environ.

I think it can be used in both ways :

arriver à la centaine : to reach one's hudredth birthday (which is not about).

par centaines : by the hundreds (about).

 

As usual, c'est compliqué !

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Mille milliards de dollars

 

 

 

 

Yes Ron, Christine is right about 'Milliards', but hey, qui cela surprendra-t-il maintenant ? (is the woman ever wrong ?). If you allow me to add my tuppence my friends, I would like to use this interesting 'Milliards' thread as a pretext to encourage French cinema lovers here to watch -or rediscover- the wonderful film above with the unique Patrick Dewaere (and why, why oh why did you kill yrself Patrick, we all miss you so much), the prescience and sense of forebodding contained in this gem really is frightening.

Of course, Captain Haddock's most famous expletive 'mille milliards de mille sabords' is also one way to register the spelling once and for all.

Now, who knows the English translation of that most famous of Haddock's 'jurons' ?

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That 'ouvrez les vannes', was that intentional or not (as a pun I mean -as it could be understood as a pun) ? if so well, que puis-je dire, I'd have to dig out a La Fontaine fable to do justice to your brilliance (it wasn't intentional, was it ?).

Anyway, I don't believe it was one even if you swear it was !!! (if you insist it was, explain !)

No, it's not 'Holy Mackerel' by Captain Cook as you guessed, whatever happened to him anyway, I heard he was a gynéco in Scarborough now, is that true ?

Alors, bande de Bashi-bouzouks mal embouché(e)s, are you giving up AGAIN ?

 

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I don't know if what you think I may have meant by a pun is the same pun as I tried to make.  J'aime bien quand tu vannes (vanner quelqu'un), et en même temps "jeu de mots" ouvrir les vannes.  T'as compris la vanne ?

Captain Cook last I heard was selling maquereaux au vin blanc.

Je ne sais pas tout 'cos I don't know anything about Captain Haddock.

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Ah mais oui, bravo, I thought so, 'open the (flood)gates and fire away the jokes', bien vu; your intricate puns should have pride of place in a whole new category called, dunno, 'Puns, bons mots and bilingual wit by users', where you could be the Immoderatress, gosh that'd be a laugh.

Bon alors, Captain Haddock's swear words, tout le monde s'en bat la couenne, c'est ça, non ?

CLUE: the 1st word is: Blistering...

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[quote]Oui, bien vu Liz, in extenso: 'Billions of Blistering Bilious Barnacles', well done, all of the big shots on here pipped to the post. By the sound of it, that must have come 'du diable Vauvert'. But w...[/quote]

Du diable Vauvert... means "a long way away" "trés loin".

ex: La chine est la diable Vauvert.

Boy am I chuffed with myself to have got the answer in first!!!! This came up in my French class last week.

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Yes Fantine, that'll do, that'll do. No gloating allowed though, that was too easy. 

Diable Vauvert

loin, très loin
Index
  Croyances
          Religions
origine : France
type : Expression

Retrouver l'origine de l'expression n'est pas simple... il existe de nombreux villages en France qui revendiquent la paternité de l'expression...

Do 'ave a Dubonnet ??? Putain, mais c'est pas tout jeune ça, that was Sacha Distel, non ?

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How obscure was that ! Where ? What year ? I demand to know (was Fernandel ever famous outside France ?). Or have you just made it up, safe in the perverse knowledge that so few of us can possibly 'puiser aussi profondement' dans les tréfonds de la culture audiovisuelle française ? C'est incroyable tt de même que tu t' rappelles de trucs pareils !
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Honest, Titi, I haven't made it up and if you think I can remember the year...   I have tried to puise in the tréfonds des sites webs, but have not found Fernandel et Dubonnet.  Pourtant, it existed.  I used to love the way he said that and ever since, when I have seen him, I always thought of "Do 'ave a Dubonnet", that's why je me rappelle de trucs pareils.  It was certainly a pub which had an effect on me.  Can't anyone remember it?

Fantine, it's funny you have never heard of Fernandel, he's sort of an everlasting legend here, I bet if you ask any French person if they have heard of him they will say "mais bien sûr..."

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I'm with Fantine on this one, never heard of him, Fernandel, Fernandel ? Swiss, no ? Broad Franche-Comté accent, c'est ça, non ? Ah, yes, no, I remember I think, wasn't he the drunken jovial lock-keeper in one of the Inspecteur Maigret soporiflicks ? Oh, hang on, are you sure he wasn't a football player ?
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