Dear Word Detective: My mother (a full blooded Italian) used to say “come si come sa” (not sure of spelling), and I never knew what that meant. I’ve searched everywhere to no avail. Could you please enlighten me? — Clint.
Take a seat, Clint. I have some possibly rather shocking news. Based on what you’ve told me, there are serious doubts about your mother’s supposed Italian heritage. Believe me, I know just how you feel. For years I presumed I was German because people in my family routinely said “Gesundheit” whenever someone sneezed. It wasn’t until I discovered my dislike of sauerkraut and affinity for cheese on toast that I realized I must be largely Welsh. But I adapted to the news quite well, and now I can quote Dylan Thomas on nearly any occasion (”Time held me green and hey, how about those Mets?”), so I’m sure you’ll be fine.
Anyway, I hope this doesn’t affect your security clearance, but it sounds to me like you’re actually at least part French. “Comme ci, comme ca” (pronounced “kohm see, kohm sah”) is a French phrase meaning, literally, “like this, like that.” In common usage, it means “so so” or “fair to middling,” a term of mild but qualified (and definitely lukewarm) approval, as in “The restaurant got a rave in the Times, but the pan-seared Twinkies the reviewer loved so much were definitely comme si, comme sa.” That which is “comme si, comme sa” is barely adequate, better than nothing but not by much. To use the phrase properly, by the way, you’ll need to extend your palm just above your waist and tilt it from side to side while saying “comme si, comme sa.”
Incidentally, to be absolutely serious for a moment, the fact that your mother used the phrase doesn’t mean that she even knew it was French. While “comme ci, comme ca” is definitely French in origin, it has been in common use in English for long enough (just after World War II, in fact) that it is now considered an established English phrase. Judging by the timing of its appearance in English publications, “comme ci, comme ca” was probably popularized by American GIs returning from service in France.
So, now that you’re in touch with your inner French person, why not sprinkle your speech with a few more “bon mots”? A good French phrasebook will have your friends either green with envy or dialing the funny farm in no time. “Chacon son gout” (shac-un son goo) is a good one, the French equivalent of “tastes vary” or “whatever floats your boat.” But my favorite, for which there is no real English equivalent, is “esprit d’escalier” (literally “wit of the staircase”), meaning the perfect witty reply that pops into your mind just after the opportunity to say it has passed.
We also say “cou-ci, cou-ça”. Don’t know why, but one online source suggests that is comes from the Italian “cosi cosi”, which means…. comme ci comme ça!
actually, the expression is pronounced: lespree lescall-e-yay
(l’esprit l’escalier) (the spirit of the stair(case)
What it means is that you think of the perfect comment just as you’re descending the staircase as you’re exiting the party on your way home. It’s the French equivalent of “it was right on the tip of my tongue.”
And it’s not new. But the sentiment is exactly perfect. When I first heard it, I said to myself “Self, I’ve been looking for that exact sentiment my entire freaking life. Whoever came up with that knows me entirely too well. Is this Candid Camera? No, really!”
> But my favorite, for which there is no real English equivalent, is “esprit d’escalier” (literally “wit of the staircase”), meaning the perfect witty reply that pops into your mind just after the opportunity to say it has passed.
I grew up in the hard coal region of northeastern Pennsylvania, where there is a large Italian population and I know there is another word or phrase in Italian that means so-so. I’m not sure of the spelling, because I haven’t been able to find it written anywhere. It’s said, mens-a-mens and is sometimes accompanied by a hand gesture in which the edge of the palm is pointed downward, as in shaking hands, then the hand is pivoted at the wrist to alternately show the palm and the back of the hand. And sometimes the gesture is used accompanied only by a vocal “eh” or “aw.”
Maybe you are thinking of “mezza mezza,” which means “half half.” In other words, half good, half not so good. I’ve heard many different pronunciations, depending on the region of origin of the speaker (or his ancestors). My Italian family is Neapolitan, so we would say “mentza-mentz” leaving off the final syllable. But I’ve heard people say “metsa mets” and “meza meza” and many other variations. I suppose the farther away you get from Italy and its influence, the more variations you will hear.
However, the accompanying gesture, as you describe it, is almost always the same, if a gesture is used. What Italian could speak without using hands, anyway?
Enjoying your site, decidedly; I especially appreciate the humor.
The French research team needs a refresher, though:
The phrase is not “Chacon son goutâ€.
Rather, it is
“Chaqu’un à son goût.” (Lit., “Each one to his taste.”
The equivalent Latin phrase was
” De gustibus non disputandum.”
Roughly, “About tastes, it is not to be argued.”
Cheers,
David
David305:
Except that the expression is usually rendered by English speakers “chacun a son goût” (each person has his taste) and not “chacun à son goût” which doesn’t really mean anything. And of course it’s “chacun” not “chaqu’un” (non existent). But in any case, the French expression is normally: “à chacun son goût”, which has the meaning you give (to each his taste).
Similarly, we say “les goûts et les couleurs” (tastes and colors), short for “les goûts et leur couleurs, cela ne se discute pas” (tastes and colors, you just can’t dispute them).
I’m afraid that importing those comments from the old blog has hopelessly scrambled them. Sorry about that.
Seems like “Treppenwitz” is slowly edging out “l’esprit d’escalier” in usage or maybe that’s just my perception. Maybe because it’s easier for most English speakers to pronounce.
In Argentina, where i was born, we have transformed the “mezza mezza” (which we surely inherited from italian immigrants), into “mas o menos” (more or less), accompannied by the same gesture described by jbaron and Bill Schmeer.
From my 50-year-old French friend in Paris:
“The exact spelling is “comme-ci, comme-ça”. It literally means “like this,
like that”.
“I’m not particularly talented in translation but it means in a more general
sense that things are going neither well nor bad and probably not as well
as they should, or that one would like. In any case, the situation could be
better. I think that the concept is probably more Latin than Anglo-Saxon.”
I think a more appropriate translation of “comme-ci, comme-ca” would be “so-so”. In use this would be the response to a query about how things are doing indicating an average or slightly sub-par situation. This translation is more faithful to the literal “like this – like that” sense of the French phrase as opposed to the similar but conceptually different “more or less” (as in the Spanish “mas o menos”) or “middling”/”half and half” (as in the Italian “mezza mezza”).
What I find particularly interesting is commonality of the associated hand gesture (forearm extended, thumb up, oscillatory rotation left and right). Has this a wider usage or is it solely a western European gesture?
In my experience with the French, they tend to use “chacun à son goût” the way we use “to each his own” in English, despite the literal meaning. This makes sense if you think of taste as preference…
Very interesting, informative, and lots of fun, too.
LaVonne – careful, pitting German and French against each other hasn’t always had desirable results, historically speaking. ;)
I wonder now whether the name of the playground ’seesaw’ has any connection to ‘comme-ci, comme-ça’ or not.
A similar hand gesture is frequently used in the U.S.A. with the exception that the palm is almost exclusively parallel to the ground (like a seesaw), but otherwise has the same meaning.
I would like to point out that this is not necessarily a straight French saying. Italians use this a lot in northern Italy (specifically, areas with the Piedmontese dialect). Because of the exchange of culture over the border, you will find a lot of Piedmontese-speaking Italians saying, “comme ci, comme ca” in the manner described.
(FYI, the Piedmontese dialect is a PAIN IN THE ASS to learn. It’s like a mix of French and Italian. It’s so VERY confusing.)
So I believe that Clint could very well have a full-blooded Italian mother. I also believe that his mother is from northern Italy, near the Italian/French border area. :D
This is coming from someone who goes to Italy every other year to meet his family in Torino (Turin, for those who don’t know it’s Italian name), so I hope I know what I’m talking about.
I was going to point out that the phrase appears – in the form of a song – in the Marx Brothers’ brilliant ‘A Night at the Opera’ (1935)… then decided to google for the lyrics, and found out it’s actually ‘cosi cosa’, which, since the Italian ‘cosi’ is basically the same as the French ‘comme ci’, is probably related.
Cosi Cosa!
It’s a wonderful word tra-la-la-la.
When anyone asks you how you are,
It’s proper to say Cosi Cosa.
Cosi Cosa!
If a lady should ask you if you care,
You don’t have to start a love affair,
Say Cosi Cosa!
Makes me wonder if perhaps that’s what the asker’s mother was saying, and it got mixed up in his memory with other things, or if she said the French version after all.
that means “a little a this a little a that.” usually a response when asked “how ya doin?”