28-02-2025
French Word of the Day: Une coquille
Why do I need to know une coquille?
Because this is a prime example of a word's gender changing its meaning.
What does it mean?
The more common version of this word is un coquille - pronounced cock-ee - meaning the hard calcareous shell that covers the body of most molluscs, and also of eggs. You'll likely have seen Coquille Saint-Jacques (scallops) on a menu.
However u ne coquille actually means a typographical error, or typo.
This might seem like a modern term, but in fact it's been around in France for a long time. No one knows exactly when it was coined – though it first appeared in the, no doubt riveting, La Science pratique de l'imprimerie (Practical Science of Printing) in 1723.
Some have said that – back in the days of typesetting, when printers made up words and sentences by arranging small, individual lead blocks on which letters were carved – the printing plates were cleaned with egg white, and pieces of shell would stick to them, leading to printing errors.
Another links the term to Santiago de Compostela, symbolised by a shell, where pilgrims would go to cleanse themselves of sin (error, if you will).
One of the funniest stories, however, states that, following a debate about egg pricing in France's national assembly in 1911, a text was published in the Journal Officiel in which the letter 'q' was – rather unfortunately – missed from the word ' coquilles ', changing it to ' couilles ' - familiar term for 'testicles'.
Apparently, the text should have read: 'shells must be clean and free of down when they are displayed…'
Incidentaly, and on a minor tangent, Muphry's Law – which itself contains a deliberate coquille – is an adage that dictates, 'any written criticism of editing or proofreading will inevitably feature an error of some kind.'
Use it like this
Une coquille s'est glissée dans mon mail d'hier – There was a typo in my email yesterday.
