Uncle Jazzbeau’s Gallimaufrey

faccia brutta

In keeping up with francophone IT terminology, viz., here's the latest: the Quebecker approved word for smiley: binette [via Les coups de language de la grande rousse]. To replace the anglicism smiley (and its more generic term, emoticon), along with calques such as souriard, they've proposed using the word binette which literally means '(garden) hoe' but also has a colloquial meaning of 'face, mug' and an older meaning of 'wig.' (Not sure if it's as pejorative in meaning as our term hatchet-faced.) Gamillscheg suggests that the secondary meaning comes from a wigmaker to Louis XIV by the name of Binet. The primary meaning, on the other hand, as a deverbal noun comes from biner which is derived from a Vulgar Latin verb, binare 'to work a field a second time.' Meyer-Lübke also mentions [via Wartburg] another verb, biner with the meaning of 'küssen, coire' which may derive from a noun bin 'penis' which is not related. Meanwhile, the French have adopted the term frimousse 'grimace' (earlier phlymouse, phryllelimouse, firlimouse). The word seems to have been influenced by the Italian far il muso 'to make a face' and is probably related to frime 'face.' It's all fascinating, but I have to agree with the blogger of Les coups, the richness of a language is often evident in its (unpredictable) vocabulary building. The Belgians have settled on frimousse.