# mézigue, ma pomme, bibi (moi-même)



## geve

Salut à toi, forum,

The French words in the title are colloquial/slang words used to refer to oneself when speaking. Mézigue, or ma pomme, or bibi can replace "moi" in an informal context. Here are a few sample sentences:

_Et qui c'est qui va se payer tout le boulot ? C'est bibi !_ [une chanson avec "bibi"]
_Toute la bande, mézigue compris, a entonné la marseillaise._ [une chanson avec "mézigue"]
_Je me suis préparé un petit frichti* pas dégeu rien que pour ma pomme._ [une chanson avec "ma pomme"] 
(* frichti = slang for nourriture, repas)

So, are there any such words or expressions in English?
I'm sure there are other words in French too, please post them if you know some!

Merci buckets.


----------



## ablazza

There is a slightly old-fashioned expression: 'Joe Soap', used to mean 'me' with the connotation of foolishness.  Eg:

'So who's got the job of clearing up after the party? - Joe Soap!'


----------



## mgarizona

The only thing that comes to mind is "yours truly" but that's rather old. The OED gives this from a Thackeray novel, 1849:

_Give the young one a glass, ... and score it up to yours truly._


----------



## Amityville

'Muggins' - that's when you're being taken advantage of. Who gets to clean up after the party ? Muggins, naturally.
Sometimes you may hear 'moi'. "What ? Moi ?" but it's very arch.


----------



## clairet

In some limited contexts you may hear "my favourite charity", as in

"You should give that to my favourite charity".


----------



## geve

Merci à tous ! 
_Joe Soap_ and _muggins_ sound like good equivalents to the French words of my original post. 
Are they used and understood in all English-speaking countries?


mgarizona said:


> The only thing that comes to mind is "yours truly" but that's rather old. The OED gives this from a Thackeray novel, 1849:
> 
> _Give the young one a glass, ... and score it up to yours truly._


This seems close to _votre serviteur_ that can be used the same way in French.


clairet said:


> In some limited contexts you may hear "my favourite charity", as in
> 
> "You should give that to my favourite charity".


Is that really a way to refer to oneself, or a conventional joke?


----------



## HogansIslander

geve said:


> _Joe Soap_ and _muggins_ sound like good equivalents to the French words of my original post.
> Are they used and understood in all English-speaking countries?



I think these are UK usages (at least, they are not North American - or if they are, I have never heard of them).


----------



## geve

Would you understand them though, if you heard them?
Can you think of any equivalent that would be used in AE?


----------



## Nicomon

Quebec is mostly French speaking, but Montreal is multilingual and I don't remember hearing _Joe Soap _
or_ muggins_. I've heard _Joe Bloe_, but that's something else.  Y_our favorite charity _rings a bell, but I don't know if I heard it on the street or on TV. "Yours truly" on the other hand is very common.

Sauf que... je n'ai jamais entendu "mézigue" et "ma pomme" pour remplacer "moi" non plus.
Bibi... je connaissais.

Je traduis (sans imagination) "me, myself and I" _par _"je, me, moi"


----------



## HogansIslander

geve said:


> Would you understand them though, if you heard them?



I don't think so.  Of course, *now* I would understand them, after this discussion. 



geve said:


> Can you think of any equivalent that would be used in AE?



I've been trying to think of one and I can't.  "Yours truly" was mentioned earlier a couple times - this is quite common as Nicomon says.

One similar expression is "You're looking at him/her".  This would be the answer to a rhetorical question "The new manager of Sales?  You're lookin' at him!".  Not really what you are in search of though.


----------



## geve

Nicomon said:


> I don't remember hearing _Joe Soap _or_ muggins_. I've heard _Joe Bloe_, but that's something else.


Oui, il me semble qu'on avait parlé de Joe Bloe dans ce fil...
En fait j'avais mis "me, myself and I" dans le titre, à défaut d'autres termes qui conviendraient mieux au registre, pour rendre le sujet plus explicite à ceux qui ne connaissaient pas _mézigue, ma pomme et bibi_ (hmm, cette phrase semble un peu nombriliste  - ça me fait penser d'ailleurs que _votre serviteur_ n'a pas de féminin... What a shame!)

Est-ce que tu vois d'autres termes en français ou en anglais, dans le genre de _bibi_ ?


----------



## Cath.S.

geve said:


> ça me fait penser d'ailleurs que _votre serviteur_ n'a pas de féminin... What a shame!


Permettez à votre servante de vous contredire.


----------



## clairet

RE: "my favourite charity"


geve said:


> Is that really a way to refer to oneself, or a conventional joke?



You're right, it's more of a conventional joke than an equivalent of one of your French terms, which I take it have lost any external reference they might once have had.


----------



## geve

egueule said:


> Permettez à votre servante de vous contredire.


T'as raison, Egueule... mais, euh, c'est quand même moins courant, non ?   


clairet said:


> You're right, it's more of a conventional joke than an equivalent of one of your French terms, which I take it have lost any external reference they might once have had.


"Ma pomme" might be a metonymy, as "pomme" can be used for one's face. Maybe it was the same process for "bibi", since the word also means "petit chapeau de femme" and (outdated I'd say) an endearment term?
As for "mézigue" (sometimes also spelt "mes zigues"), it seems that the origin isn't clear...


----------



## Cath.S.

> T'as raison, Egueule... mais, euh, c'est quand même moins courant, non ?


 
Je suis bien certaine de l'avoir employé sur ce forum à plusieurs reprises, sans provoquer l'incompréhension de mes chers contemporains.

J'ai déjà rencontré, en anglais, des tournures du genre 
*this boy* loves you madly!


----------



## geve

egueule said:


> Je suis bien certaine de l'avoir employé sur ce forum à plusieurs reprises, sans provoquer l'incompréhension de mes chers contemporains.


En effet, après vérification effectuée sous contrôle de Maître Verveine-Menthe, huissier à demeure, j'ai bien trouvé trois posts signés par notre servante préférée : Tézigue... Ma pathétique tentative pour atténuer mon absence du post 11 tombe à l'eau. 



egueule said:


> J'ai déjà rencontré, en anglais, des tournures du genre
> *this boy* loves you madly!


En effet, et d'ailleurs on lit souvent par ici "This Canadian has never heard the term" ou "This American disagrees" (même dans les premiers posts, donc pas forcément pour s'opposer à ce qu'un compatriote a dit auparavant).


----------



## Auryn

Il y a "number one", dans l'expression "to look after number one".

_He always looks after number one_: c'est un égoïste de première; lui d'abord, le reste après!


----------



## geve

Interesting! ça ne s'utilise donc que dans le cadre précis de cette expression ?


----------



## Auryn

Ben, dans un autre contexte _number one_ = pipi 

Mais pour répondre à ta question, je ne sais pas, je ne connais que cette expression. Attendons les anglophones!


----------



## HogansIslander

Je ne connais pas "number one"="me" en aucun autre expression sauf que ça. je pense.    Biensûr il y a des autres utilisations de "number one" mais ils ne signifent pas "me".


----------



## geve

HogansIslander said:


> Je ne connais pas "number one"="me" en aucun autre expression sauf que ça. je pense. Biensûr il y a des autres utilisations de "number one" mais ils ne signifent pas "me".


Bon, dommage...


Auryn said:


> Ben, dans un autre contexte _number one_ = pipi


Vraiment ?!  Dans ce cas, je vais peut-être éviter.


----------



## Auryn

geve said:


> Vraiment ?!  Dans ce cas, je vais peut-être éviter.



Oui, c'est un peu vieillot mais les amateurs d'euphémismes l'utilisent toujours. Par exemple David Blaine:
_
One question quickly reminded everyone of Blaine's human limitations.  What happens when he needs to go to the toilet?

(...) "I have a catheter in case I have to do a number one but I don't intend on doing anything else."_


----------



## geve

Ah oui, bien sûr !  Number one, as opposed to number two...


----------



## mplsray

mgarizona said:


> The only thing that comes to mind is "yours truly" but that's rather old. The OED gives this from a Thackeray novel, 1849:
> 
> _Give the young one a glass, ... and score it up to yours truly._


 
I thought of _yours truly _also, but it doesn't seem particularly old-fashioned to me. A Google search of 

"with yours truly" -restaurant 

gets 104,000 hits. (I excluded "restaurant" from the search because there's a restaurant chain named Yours Truly.)


----------



## LaurentK

Je pense à _votre serviteur,_ voire vot' serviteur
Signé votre serviteur.


----------



## geve

Oui, oui, et "votre servante", tout le monde sait ça !  (voir posts 6 et 12... )


----------



## LaurentK

Désolé Geve ! tu poses de trop bonnes questions qui engenrent de longs fils que je dévide trop vite, je m'en vais de ce pas mettre le jambon (me myself and I) dans le torchon que je jette pour ce soir.


----------



## zam

'Muggins' (= bibi) and 'yours truly' (= votre serviteur) are very common in BE.


----------



## sylvbarrier

Hello,
The origin of "mézigue" is "me" + "zigue", with "zigue"="homme" (like in "un drôle de zigue"="a queer fish"). Its a rather old-fashioned Parisian slang, from the vocabulary of the "titis" of Montmartre. It can be heard in early-20th-century songs or as an ironical phrase in comical ones (e.g. Pierre Perret's songs). "Mézigue" is declined like a pronoun in : "tézigue" (toi) and "sézigue" (lui, elle).
Variants can be found, such as : "mon gniasse" or "mégniasse" and "mon gniard", that are also declined.
Example in a parody of Victor Hugo's poem "Après la bataille" : "Mon dabe, ce grand mec qu'avait la gueule en biais / Suivi d'un seul troufion que son gniasse chouchoutait..."
For the boldest, surf the Web for interesting sites dealing with parodies full of "mézigue", "ma pomme", "ton gniard" or even "mécolle" ! (e.g. a nice version of La Fontaine's "Le Chêne et le Roseau").
Serviteur.


----------



## Cath.S.

> sézigue


J'ai trouvé ton message très enrichissant , Sylvbarrier, je voudrais simplement dire que j'ai toujours vu ce mot écrit (principalement dans la série des San-Antonio de F. Dard) _*c*ézigue_.


----------



## clairet

Some late thoughts:

"*Oneself* is simply grotesque.  Herzog stated it impulsively..." (Saul Bellow)
In the UK this use would be rare, formal even camp but it exists.

The "royal we" is possibly within the range of your comparison, as in "*We* are thinking of a solo trek to the South Pole".


----------



## multae gentes

What about 'methinks' ? It is common, at least on American blogs


----------



## geve

Merci pour ces nouvelles contributions ! 


multae gentes said:


> What about 'methinks' ? It is common, at least on American blogs


Yes, this word made me wonder once or twice on this forum. Does it necessarily introduce an opinion, or can it be broader than that?


----------



## mplsray

_Methinks_ does not come from the verb _think_ as used in the modern sense, but from a cognate word which meant "seem." It comes from an Old English phrase which meant "(It) seems to me."

It's an archaic form which has been revived as a jocular usage, in part, methinks, because current English speakers look at it as being ungrammatical, misanalyzing _me_ as being the subject rather than an indirect object and taking _thinks_ to be an inappropriate substitute for _think_ in the modern sense. But as can be seen from its original meaning, the third-person _thinks_ is the appropriate form of the verb.

Even so, _I think such-and-such is true._ and _It seems to me that such-and-such is true._ (and thus _Methinks such-and-such is true._) are saying the same thing.


----------



## GazzaNZL

I did not see these above, perhaps they are, in case not:

Myself - Who made that? Myself.
The one and only - Did you make that? The one and only.


----------



## hcetanul

GazzaNZL said:


> I did not see these above, perhaps they are, in case not:
> 
> Myself - Who made that? Myself.
> The one and only - Did you make that? The one and only.



To add to the above (and all the rest up above), I also offer "this guy", "me, myself, and I", "me and mine", and just the plain "my own self" or the extra-emphasized "me!".

I've never heard of "my favorite charity", but I love it.  This Canadian will totally use it from now on.  And you know who's never heard of "muggins" or "Joe Soap" — this guy!  Must be antiquated and/or UK-only.

I think only some of these expressions carry with them the aspect of solitude (that one bemoans and/or self-deprecatingly derides in their use).  As such it's a case-by-case basis depending on current usage and in what milieu/circumstance.

For example, this is what I'd use for the phrases from the OP... YMMV:

_Et qui c'est qui va se payer tout le boulot ? *Who else but me !*_ [une chanson avec "bibi"]
_Toute la bande, *myself included*, a entonné la marseillaise._ [une chanson avec "mézigue"]
_Je me suis préparé un petit frichti* pas dégeu *just for my lonesome self / me, myself, and I*._


----------



## Le Gallois bilingue

multae gentes said:


> What about 'methinks' ? It is common, at least on American blogs


This is simply a way of saying something like _I think. _There is no equivalence with _mugging _or _yours truly ._


----------

