Re: FW: WIDOWS POLICES ??

From: John Cowan (jcowan@reutershealth.com)
Date: Fri Oct 27 2000 - 14:51:54 EDT


"Alain LaBonté " wrote:

> « Une police [de caractères] » simply means "a character font", as odd as it may look. In other contexts, « police » also means « cop » in French. Hard to catch for English-speakers, but true.

Doesn't it also have the sense of "[insurance] policy"? I remember a
machine-translation joke, something to the effect of the French version
of "You may wish to protect your jewelry with a special policy" came out
in the English version as "police special" --- which in the U.S. means
"the .38 caliber handgun traditionally carried by the police", quite
twisting the sense of the sentence!

-- 
There is / one art                   || John Cowan <jcowan@reutershealth.com>
no more / no less                    || http://www.reutershealth.com
to do / all things                   || http://www.ccil.org/~cowan
with art- / lessness                 \\ -- Piet Hein



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