locussolus - Coup de gras, revisited

November 21, 2004

I get an awful lot of visitors coming to this site looking for "coup de gras." My guess is that the phrase has entered popular usage because of its conspicuous appearance in Kill Bill 2; the relevant post has been up since Valentine's Day, but I don't remember getting any searches until the summer, after the movie came out.

The problem is, these searchers almost certainly mean to look for the phrase coup de grace, which according to the OED means a blow by which a person condemned or mortally hurt is put out of his or her misery; a decisive finishing stroke (my Pocket Robert gives a slightly more flexible definition: coup qui acheve definativement quelqu'un (qui est blesse, qui souffre)). Presumably the searchers are confused because Uma Thurman and Michael Madsen both pronounced the phrase incorrectly in the movie, leaving off the final /s/ that ought to be pronounced either in English or in French.

Coup de gras has no dictionary definition at all -- instead it was a pun on the word gras, meaning fat, which made sense since the post was about a French dinner party we threw, a veritable deathblow of fat.

Comments

Zach {September 24, 2005}

Interesting. I, too, found this page via google after seeing Kill Bill Vol 2. The wikipedia entry (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coup_de_grace) now also appears in the results.

Chuck {August 7, 2006}

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Admiral_de_grasse

Admiral De Grasse played a role in the end of the American revolution when he told George Washington that he was sailing the French fleet up from the Caribeann and he chose YORKTOWN as his destination despite the fact George wanted him to take NY. This became serendipity as Cornwalis (the British General) was ordered by Clinton (the head of the British military in the Colonies) was ordered there. All of a sudden the French and the Americans were there, defeated Cornwalis and ended the war.

A Coupe DeGrasse would be a serendipitous startegic decison like this. Similarly a Coup De Jarnac is a tricky or underhanded way of defeating a more poerful foe.

See, a coup de jarnac is named for:

July 10, 1547: Guy Chabot de Jarnac, in a judicial duel with Francois de Vivonne de la Châtaigneraie, a favourite of the King and one of France's greatest swordsmen. Jarnac fooled La Châtaigneraie with a feint and hit him with a slash to the hamstrings. His dignity offended, La Châtaigneraie refused medical aid, and died. This both ended the practice of trial by combat in France, and created the myth of "Le Coup de Jarnac" - a legendary strike that supposedly allowed amateurs to defeat masters.

Now this is from wiki and not complete. He hit La Châtaigneraie in the hamstring and injured him, then they continued to duel...it is to the death, and he tricked him again and then hit his other hamstring. Now he could not move. He was immobilized and Jarnac did not deliever a death blow. La Châtaigneraie did choose to die though, from loss of blood.

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