# grenouille de bénitier



## antoine.a

hi again.... odd expression which means someone is so much involved into religion that he totally loses the sense of things ; quite like becoming naive and likes living in a church.

Can someone propose the nearest expression in english ?

thanks


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## Aupick

In British English we have Bible-basher, but it's not very complimentary.


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## antoine.a

grenouille de benitier is not very complimentary either... thanks ! i keep it.


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## Nunty

Bliss ninny?
God squad?

I've got quite a list, since many of my family and friends didn't understand why an otherwise normal woman would give up a business and become a nun.

Can you give us a sense of the linguistic register you need, or a little context?


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## melancolique

overly-religious

or, conversationally, "a freak about religion"

He is overly-religious.
She is a freak about religion.

si tu veux être un petit peu méchant, tu peux dire [He is a] "jesus-freak".... mais je ne le recommande.


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## antoine.a

overly-religious doesn't have the sense i want... grenouille de benitier is to kindly make fun of a person who spents so much time in church that he/she never see the sun, who totaly forgets that the beauty of the life is also to be able to enjoy it without keeping him/herself from simple pleasures. 

this expression is quite "francaise" because with the laicity, people use to take some distance with religion, which appears now as old-fashioned, that's why it's not easily understandable for every culture...

anyway it could be simple "raillerie" or like i told, kindy mockery for an "old-style" grand mother for example...

Thanks every body.


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## edwingill

holy Joe or a pious person


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## Nunty

I like edwingill's "holy Joe".


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## Gardefeu

... except that, for some reason, _grenouille de bénitier_ nearly always refers to a woman (maybe because _grenouille_ is feminine, or is it because men don't go to church that often!)
Can you say Joe in that case?


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## edwingill

Gardefeu said:
			
		

> ... except that, for some reason, _grenouille de bénitier_ nearly always refers to a woman (maybe because _grenouille_ is feminine, or is it because men don't go to church that often!)
> Can you say Joe in that case?


The feminine equivalent is holy Mary


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## Gardefeu

Thanks!
So presumably Joe is short for Joseph in the male version of this expression?


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## BLERO

Hi,

I have read somwhere the expression : "church mouse"


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## mgarizona

In AE I've never heard 'Holy Joe' or 'Holy Mary' but I like them and I think they'd be understandable. In the US the simple phrase "church lady" would get this idea across nicely, thanks to Dana Carvey on _Saturday Night Live_. I've also seen and heard "church biddies" on occasion. (Biddy, which comes from the name Bridgit, is a derogatory term for a woman.)


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## viera

I like "church mouse".  "Une grenouille de bénitier" has always struck me as a mousy sort of person.


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## mgarizona

Church mouse has no sense of bigot attached to it. Only general use is in the phrase "poor as a churchmouse" ... if you applied it to a woman you'd be calling her "mousey," which means quiet and passive. NOT the sense here at all (as I understand it).


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## melancolique

...Jesus freak


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## polaire

mgarizona said:
			
		

> In AE I've never heard 'Holy Joe' or 'Holy Mary' but I like them and I think they'd be understandable. In the US the simple phrase "church lady" would get this idea across nicely,  thanks to Dana Carvey on _Saturday Night Live_. I've also seen and heard "church biddies" on occasion. (Biddy, which comes from the name Bridgit, is a derogatory term for a woman.)


Yes, a "church lady" is a religious zealot, a person who seems to have no life outside church activities.  Dana Carvey's character wasn't just religion-mad, however, she was a judgmental hypocrite, which I think is a lot nastier than "Grenouille de benitier."

I stopped watching SNL years ago, but what was the character's line?

--"Now isn't that _special_?" (Said in a very nasty tone.  )


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## zam

I’d say: a staunch/committed church-goer




> Désigne une personne bigote, qui a une pratique étroite et bornée de la dévotion religieuse, par extension : une personne qui va souvent à l’église. “Ma grand-mère, qui est une grenouille de bénitier, ne rate pas une messe”


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## Wodwo

Probably not quite right for this ancient query, but in this context I've always been fond of the term 'god-botherer' myself.


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## hampton.mc

_putain de grenouille de bénitier !_

Sorry for another thread with bad language 
It's a woman thinking about another woman". She is obviously very angry.
I originally wrote "bloody puritanical twat" then I have come to realize thanks to another thread that a girl wouldn't really use the word "twat" especially not in the U.S. I think that "idiot" is too weak and "bit**" has been used previously.
Any ideas?


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## Keith Bradford

_Bloody Jesus freak!_

(Jesus(-)freak is a set expression.)


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## hampton.mc

Bloody Jesus freak! very good. Thank you

Would "Jesus" be understood as "God" and not only as "Jesus" because of context:
The second woman is insisting that the first one should get married at church.

... She was dying to answer: and what business of yours is it? She replied instead, ‘I feel that God is already present in every part of our relationship. I don’t feel the need to take it any further.’
‘All the more reasons to get engage in front of Him.’
Bloody puritanical twat! Lea thought.
Bloody Jesus freak! Lea thought.


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## Keith Bradford

Like I said, it's a set expression.  But _God freak_ also exists, it seems.


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## hampton.mc

Thank you


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## mgarizona

As Lea has already expressed a respect for God and thereby implied at least a modicum of religious sentiment, I think it would be odd for her to dismiss a (simply) MORE religious person as a Jesus Freak. Unless we're to understand that her initial statement was not merely tactful but outright hypocritical.

Religious people do not call other people "Jesus Freaks." Only heathens like me do that.

I think MC was closer to the mark with her original "puritanical."

You could say "Puritanical little prig!" Or even "Self-righteous little prig!"

(Note: In the 17th century "puritanical prig" would have been a redundancy, but the word 'prig' has lost some, but not all, of its initial association with the Puritans. Today it applied more to the morally than to the religiously doctrinaire, though in AE usage there's little light between the two.)

It would also seem that while the word 'prig' seems to be relatively gender-neutral in BE, it's in my experience that in AE it's very much so more associated with women. In fact if I heard a man referred to as a 'prig' in my mind that would suggest a definite tinge of effeminacy to go along with the moral didacticism.


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## franc 91

Such a trumped-up bigot, she is


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## wildan1

Keith Bradford said:


> _Bloody Jesus freak!_
> 
> (Jesus(-)freak is a set expression.)


I would agree with mgarizona that _Jesus freak_ is an outsider term.

_bloody_ is pure BE as an epithet-- _bloody Jesus_ to an AE ear with little exposure to BE sounds like Jesus dripping in blood.

In AE,_ Goddamned_ (or stronger:_ fucking_)_ church freak_ is a possibility. It suggests the person hangs around churches too much and for the wrong reasons.

_grenouille de bénitier_--literally _frog_ (not French person!)_ of holy water fonts_--can't be transferred directly in a predominantly Protestant culture unless the criticism is specifically about Roman Catholics and not church-goers in general--up to you to choose given context.


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## hampton.mc

Merci à vous trois pour vos idées et vos informations complémentaires


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## franc 91

I've just seen another expression - a knuckle-dragging bigot (grâce à Pedro y La Torre)


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## hampton.mc

Oui j'étais justement en train de lire ce fil  mais il semblerait que l'expression soit plus orientée vers le sens de primitif/primate.
Merci franc91


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## RenoHuskerDu

Aupick said:


> In British English we have Bible-basher, but it's not very complimentary.



'Bible basher' would be the opposite in the US. Bashing something is to criticize it.  In US English we'd say 'Bible Thumper'


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## RenoHuskerDu

Keith Bradford said:


> _Bloody Jesus freak!_
> 
> (Jesus(-)freak is a set expression.)



It is not an insult to Christians however. Witness lyrics from TobyMac, Newsboys, and others.


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## RenoHuskerDu

viera said:


> I like "church mouse".  "Une grenouille de bénitier" has always struck me as a mousy sort of person.



I agree. This is the closest trans in my book.


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