Cloying

Searching for a word to describe how I was feeling last night, the word blasé popped into my head... but as I do sometimes when I'm thinking and close to a computer, I looked up the word to see if it was really what I wanted.

''1. Uninterested because of frequent exposure or indulgence.

2. Unconcerned; nonchalant: had a blasé attitude about housecleaning.

3. Very sophisticated.''

It didn't really seem to fit my mood after all, and I never did find a word to describe what I was feeling, but I became interested in this information:

''French, from past participle of blaser, to cloy, from French dialectal, to be chronically hung over, probably from Middle Dutch blsen, to blow up, swell; see bhl- in Indo-European roots''

Then I realized that I didn't know what cloy meant. Turns out it means ''To cause distaste or disgust by supplying with too much of something originally pleasant, especially something rich or sweet; surfeit.'' So I sort of understand the connection between the French verb for to cloy and the idea of being hung over: alcohol in moderation is pleasant, but in excess it can be... distasteful? Unpleasant anyway.


I wanted to see the word ''cloy'' used in a sentence, and I actually found two Shakespeare quotations to help me out:

''O, who can hold a fire in his hand

By thinking on the frosty Caucasus?

Or cloy the hungry edge of appetite

By bare imagination of a feast?

Or wallow naked in December snow

By thinking on fantastic summer's heat?

O no, the apprehension of the good

Gives but the greater feeling to the worse'' 

and the second:

''Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale

Her infinite variety. Other women cloy

The appetites they feed, but she makes hungry

Where most she satisfies'' 

I find the use of the word more clear in the second quotation. In the first, I don't see why Shakespeare couldn't have used the word ''satiate'' or something else, because the idea of cloying doesn't seem necessary to the sentence, but then, en revanche, a feast is an excellent example of  something that is cloying. Thanks Shakespeare.


[''en revanche'' is a French phrase I particularly like the sound of. It means ''on the other hand''. But ''revanche'' is actually the French word for revenge.]


But to return to the word that set off all my musings, the word ''blasé'', I had to look up the definition of the French verb ''blaser'', because I have actually heard a French person describe themselves as feeling blasé, and I wanted to know if the feeling of French ''blasé'' is the same as the feeling of English people feeling ''blasé''.

''blaser, verbe transitif Sens  Rendre indifférent, émousser les sensations, les émotions suite à un abus de ces mêmes jouissances.'' So I'm going to translate that as: ''render indifferent; dull the feelings and emotions after an abuse of these very enjoyments''. In French the word ''jouissance'' can also be used to mean an orgasm. That's just a side note though, I'm pretty sure ''blaser'' has nothing to do with orgasms.

In conclusion, I think that both English and French people are basically talking about the same thing when they use the word ''blasé'', but that the French verb ''blaser'' does not seem to be the equivalent of cloying, because ''blaser'' is the creation of a dull and indifferent state, whereas ''to cloy'' in English goes beyond indifference to distaste or disgust. It's funny how the nonexistence of an English word in French or vice versa seems to indicate the nonexistence of an idea, which sometimes can seem like an interesting clue to the way we are different.