An American in Provence

There is an expression in french "Arrete ton char!" that I have heard many times. It was always used in the context of "quit being so dramatic" (usually used by my french brother-in-law to his young daughter). Stop exagerating. Stop carrying on.

Because of the french tendancy to not pronounce the last letter or two, I thought he was saying "chat" or cat. I could totally see how "Stop your cat!" could be used in that way, perhaps something about meowing on and on about the same thing, or the drama-queen dispositions of cats.

Alain and I were talking one evening, and there was some joke about cats. I was quite proud to use my new-found expression. I told him, in my best 'see how well I am learning French expressions' voice: "Arrete ton chat!" as a joke. He didn't quite understand, so I told him "You know, the expression 'arrete ton chat'?" (Geez, What kind of French is he if he doesn't know this expression?)

No, it's char! Char? what the heck is a char?

Apparently char is short for chariot. Also, it sounds like 'charrier' to exagerate.

"Nous avons là droit à un beau calembour, digne de l'Almanach Vermot et datant du milieu du XXe siècle. Cette expression est tout simplement un jeu de mot avec 'char', le véhicule, et 'charre', l'exagération, mot dérivé du verbe populaire 'charrier', exagérer. Elle assimile celui qu'on essaye d'arrêter de dire des bêtises au véhicule lancé à grande vitesse qu'il faut tenter de stopper.L'ajout du nom du conducteur est venu un peu après la naissance de l'expression, en 1959, à l'époque du succès du film Ben-Hur dont on sait qu'un des passages les plus spectaculaires est une course de chars dans la Rome antique."

"This is a pun dating back to the 20th century (wow! that long ago! ;)
This expression is simply a play on words of 'chariot', the vehicle, and 'charre', the exaggeration, the slang meaning of the popular verb 'charrier', to exaggerate (the verb can also mean to carry along or transport). It relates someone who tries to stop talking nonsense to the effort of stopping a large vehicle traveling at high speed.
The addition of the name of the driver ("Arrte ton char Ben-Hur") came shortly after the birth of the expression, in 1959, to the era of the success of the film Ben Hur, which includes as we well know the scenes of the chariot race in ancient Rome. "

Anyone want to share language gaffes that they have committed?