Cry Wolf
Posted: Wed Feb 12, 2025 8:11 am
Hello everyone! Thank you for joining me for this new episode of the Français Authentique podcast. I am very happy to be back with you for the analysis of a new French expression. Today, we are going to discover together the meaning of the expression "crying wolf". It is an expression that you may have already heard.
But before that, I just want to tell you something. In the description, you can click on the first link and it will redirect you directly to the Authentic French Academy. So I think you know what it is. Registrations are currently closed. And as you may know, they are closed almost all year round.
So for the moment, even if you can't join us, I still invite you to go take a look at the page, go look and discover what you could have access to: the contents, the modules, the Zoom meetings with the academy tutors, the dictations, the meetings with Johan, the reading club, there are also the SOS grammar, conjugation, pronunciation sheets, right, and many other things that will allow you to learn the French language smoothly and in an informed way.
The next registrations are scheduled for January 7th, so you malaysia whatsapp number data can join the waiting list if you want to follow us in the adventure and be part of the Authentic French Academy. The link is in the description.
Let's go back to our expression "cry wolf". So we can already stop on each word of the expression. We have the word "cry". So it's a verb. It means to scream, a piercing sound, to speak loudly and raise your voice. We can scream because we are angry for example or because we are far away and we want to be heard by our interlocutor or for any other reason.
We have the little word "au". It is the contraction between the preposition "à" and the article "le".
And we have the word "wolf". It's an animal, it's a carnivorous mammal that looks like a big dog and lives in the forest.
So we can now ask ourselves the question of the origin of the expression. We find this expression for the first time in antiquity. So it was in a fable by Aesop, a Greek poet, and his story was called The Boy Who Cried Wolf. And it actually tells the story of a young shepherd who amuses himself by crying wolf and so the villagers, alerted by the call, come to help him. But they realize in fact that there is no danger. So the boy repeats the trick several times and the day the animal really appears, well the villagers, believing it to be another bad joke on the part of the young boy, do not come to his aid and suddenly his flock of sheep is devoured by the wolf.
This story, well it's a fable and we learn a lesson from it, like most fables. And the lesson, well it's that if we lie or exaggerate constantly, no one will believe us when we tell the truth.
For example, a person who often complains about nothing, well the day something really "misfortune" happens to them, we no longer believe them.
So in the fable, here, the young boy, he cried wolf so much for nothing in the end that the day when the wolf was really present, well no one believed him anymore and his flock of sheep was devoured by the wolf.
But before that, I just want to tell you something. In the description, you can click on the first link and it will redirect you directly to the Authentic French Academy. So I think you know what it is. Registrations are currently closed. And as you may know, they are closed almost all year round.
So for the moment, even if you can't join us, I still invite you to go take a look at the page, go look and discover what you could have access to: the contents, the modules, the Zoom meetings with the academy tutors, the dictations, the meetings with Johan, the reading club, there are also the SOS grammar, conjugation, pronunciation sheets, right, and many other things that will allow you to learn the French language smoothly and in an informed way.
The next registrations are scheduled for January 7th, so you malaysia whatsapp number data can join the waiting list if you want to follow us in the adventure and be part of the Authentic French Academy. The link is in the description.
Let's go back to our expression "cry wolf". So we can already stop on each word of the expression. We have the word "cry". So it's a verb. It means to scream, a piercing sound, to speak loudly and raise your voice. We can scream because we are angry for example or because we are far away and we want to be heard by our interlocutor or for any other reason.
We have the little word "au". It is the contraction between the preposition "à" and the article "le".
And we have the word "wolf". It's an animal, it's a carnivorous mammal that looks like a big dog and lives in the forest.
So we can now ask ourselves the question of the origin of the expression. We find this expression for the first time in antiquity. So it was in a fable by Aesop, a Greek poet, and his story was called The Boy Who Cried Wolf. And it actually tells the story of a young shepherd who amuses himself by crying wolf and so the villagers, alerted by the call, come to help him. But they realize in fact that there is no danger. So the boy repeats the trick several times and the day the animal really appears, well the villagers, believing it to be another bad joke on the part of the young boy, do not come to his aid and suddenly his flock of sheep is devoured by the wolf.
This story, well it's a fable and we learn a lesson from it, like most fables. And the lesson, well it's that if we lie or exaggerate constantly, no one will believe us when we tell the truth.
For example, a person who often complains about nothing, well the day something really "misfortune" happens to them, we no longer believe them.
So in the fable, here, the young boy, he cried wolf so much for nothing in the end that the day when the wolf was really present, well no one believed him anymore and his flock of sheep was devoured by the wolf.