Quote:
Originally Posted by Scruffydog777
"Little piece of cabbage there well I think I'm Maggie's age"
When I first saw the picture, I thought it was Maggy but it's Alizée when she was 3. I believe the cabbage is a reference to the flowers she was wearing?
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For some reason the videos are unavailable, perhaps they were removed by YT?
Either way, of course I can't see the video so I can't know for sure, but of course going by the auto google translate it seems like a funny thing to say. But you might find it useful if I point out that its very common in France to refer to young children as "Mon petit chou" or call them "Chouchou" (pronounced like "shoe"). Its also something that adults call their loved ones, similar to darling/sweetie/baby in English. Basically its used as a term of endearment, similar to how the French also call each other "chérie" but with even more of an emphasis on them finding you sweet/cute.
"Chou / Choux" is French for cabbage so it might seem like they are literally calling each other "little cabbages", and this often amuses people learning French as a second language but that's not what it means. Chou is also a type of pastry used in lots of common French cream cakes. You may have heard of Choux buns, or "chou à la crème", very common French pastries. This is what its referring to - a sweet treat, so its like when English speakers call each other "sweetie".
Even though everyone in France knows they aren't really calling their children cabbages, and are instead calling them "sweet", its common for French adults to make cute jokes/puns about babies/toddlers being cabbages - either dressing them as cabbages or having cartoon illustrations of cabbages on their clothes etc. You sometimes see little plushie cabbages with faces on being given as gifts for babies when they are born or at baby showers.
There is also a very famous nursery rhyme style song that all French children learn called "Savez-vous planter les choux?" which means "Do you know how to plant cabbages?" and is used to teach the names of different body parts to young children, similar to "heads shoulders knees and toes" in English, so this is another reason parents/adults associate cabbages with very young children.
So even though I can't watch the clip, it very much sounds like Alizée is looking at the picture of herself when she is 3 and saying something like "and who is this cute little sweetie? Well, that's me when I was about Maggie's age".
