5 ms·
Consider me absolutely plussed. This reminds me of hanging out with friends when someone wondered, "what is the opposite of nonchalant? Is 'chalant' its own th
by geluso 6y ago
Consider me absolutely plussed.
This reminds me of hanging out with friends when someone wondered, "what is the opposite of nonchalant? Is 'chalant' its own thing?!"
- mkaic 6y agochalan translates from french as "hot" apparently
- seszett 6y agoChalant is the present participle of the (disused) verb "chaloir", which means "to matter to someone", "to be important (to someone)". It's only used anymore in the words "nonchalant" (someone to which things don't matter much) and the expression "peu me chaut" (it matters little to me). But although "nonchalant" has a clear meaning, the meaning of "chalant" wouldn't be as obvious, since while it's easy to not care about things generally, "generally caring about things" is just the normal state of a person. It's the same reason you don't often hear about a stoppable force or a wieldy tool.
- touisteur 6y agoBien achalandé ?
- seszett 6y agoChaland is something unrelated, it's a slow delivery barge from which derive two meanings, one for a shop being well-stocked (bien achalandé, because it's well served by the barge) and the other for visiting things at a leisurely pace (because the barge is slow and makes many stops).
- dan-robertson 6y agoNonplussed is a particularly weird case as it means surprised but many people (particularly in North America) think it means not surprised, and so they might think plussed means surprised when through this backformation it ought to mean non-surprised.