Saturday, November 03, 2018

Away in a manger

This is une mangeoire (a manger) in one of the cow pastures that Tasha and I passed while walking along the Vendée River. Before the sun was up, ground fog made the pasture look a little eerie. On our way back to the house, however, the sun had burned the mists away.

Manger with fog.

The word manger [mon-ZHAY] is the French verb "to eat." We use it to mean "feeding trough." The French word for that is mangeoire [mon-ZHWAR].

Manger with sun.

An old word for une mangeoire is une crèche [KRESH] which, in France, has come to describe what we call a nativity scene. It's also become, since the late nineteenth century, the modern word for "child day care center."

4 comments:

  1. Very interesting to see the difference between with fog, and without. On my drive to work in the morning, the last mile is an area that must sit low, and sometimes we get big stretches of very low-lying fog. It's the weirdest feeling to drive through it.

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  2. What a transformation! I don't know why but every time I think of "Away in a Manger," I hear it sung badly with a strong southern twang. I wish I could remember why.

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  3. judy, we often have thick fog in the river valley. It can be sunny in the vineyards, but completely socked in down below.

    mitch, fortunately, I don't think about "Away in a Manger" very often. ;)

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  4. Fascinating; I have never seen one before.

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