As usual, this week's word comes from having watched France 2's evening comedy/talk show, "On a tout éssayé," a show were the host and six regulars receive celebrity guests and talk about current events.
One of last evening's guests was Michaël Youn (left), 33, a pretty well known comic in France who became famous doing a morning show on M6 between 2000 and 2003. Since, he's done some wacky songs, several films, and his own theatrical stand up show.His banter, as you can imagine, is pretty fast and furious and full of slang. Referring to a show-biz colleague last evening, he said, "Je le kif." I've heard variations of the word kif for a while; there's kif, kif-kif, but the the verb kifer (or kiffer) is new to me.
My Petit Robert dictionary defines kif as an Arab word meaning hashish, which makes me realize why it's become part of the French slang vocabulary. Kif-kif means "the same," as in, "It's all the same to me - celui-ci ou celui-là, c'est kif-kif."
The verb, on the other hand, means to like or appreciate. When Youn said, "Je le kif," he was saying about someone that he appreciated his work, that he liked him well.
Je le kif aussi, if that's allowed. For a weekly fix on the anglais side of the equation, check this out. There are a lot of Americanisms and other goodies, too. Bons mots, in fact. He's just fun, period. http://www.worldwidewords.org/
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