MelkorsHubris
New Member
When Dr.Olsen (Corey) first discussed the difficulties of assessing whether a comment was a joke or not, I laughed at the absurdity of finding myself in that situation myself, ever.
It would turn out the Fates had something else ordained for me.
La Cote Mal Taillée is something of a mystery to me, as a french-speaker. There's a lot happening here that is just completely missed to an anglophone modern audience. I believe much more of the Anglo-Norman nobility would have been aware of the play on words/conceptual differences of the words from french sources.
The French monarchy from the 11th to 18th century could impose upon the peasant population a form of unpaid labour as a form of annual taxation. Taxes in french are event called "Impose[d]", "Impots".
The projects of the State which employed serf labour was called "Corvée", for which each individual's Cote (portion) would be Tailler (Per capita owed/decision process)
So if your portion of annual labour was improperly decided, your "cote" would be badly "taillé".
On the other hand, a Cotte was mail armour. "Une cotte de mailles" was a chain-mail shirt. The word only differs from the homophone by a single letter. And not unlike early English, the french language was subject to individual choices of the author.
This means that in many historical cases, the "Cotte" was written as "Cot". The earliest version of the French Academy's dictionary from 1694 includes the expression in its definitions for "Tailler", with the context of someone contesting improperly assessed sums owed.
The colloquial expression, "Une cote mal taillée" has the french meaning of "a compromise that suits no one". This meaning was known in the 15th century and thus would have likely been available within Mallory's sources.
So uh, was Kay making an educated play on words that a french-reading audience would recognize as being something more than just mocking his clothing?
It would turn out the Fates had something else ordained for me.
La Cote Mal Taillée is something of a mystery to me, as a french-speaker. There's a lot happening here that is just completely missed to an anglophone modern audience. I believe much more of the Anglo-Norman nobility would have been aware of the play on words/conceptual differences of the words from french sources.
The French monarchy from the 11th to 18th century could impose upon the peasant population a form of unpaid labour as a form of annual taxation. Taxes in french are event called "Impose[d]", "Impots".
The projects of the State which employed serf labour was called "Corvée", for which each individual's Cote (portion) would be Tailler (Per capita owed/decision process)
So if your portion of annual labour was improperly decided, your "cote" would be badly "taillé".
On the other hand, a Cotte was mail armour. "Une cotte de mailles" was a chain-mail shirt. The word only differs from the homophone by a single letter. And not unlike early English, the french language was subject to individual choices of the author.
This means that in many historical cases, the "Cotte" was written as "Cot". The earliest version of the French Academy's dictionary from 1694 includes the expression in its definitions for "Tailler", with the context of someone contesting improperly assessed sums owed.
The colloquial expression, "Une cote mal taillée" has the french meaning of "a compromise that suits no one". This meaning was known in the 15th century and thus would have likely been available within Mallory's sources.
So uh, was Kay making an educated play on words that a french-reading audience would recognize as being something more than just mocking his clothing?
