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by vvvVVVvvv 4526 days ago
Origin of Entrepreneur : French, from Old French, from entreprendre; to undertake.

I guess the irony is lost on them.

1 comments

Just a question: Doesn't "entrepreneur" totally sound French? I'm French so it's obvious to me, but I'm surprised you fetched a dictionnary to back you up. Do English speakers need to be scholar to guess it's a French word?
French as well, so I'm only backing my point with the dictionary definition ;)

Given how weirdly they tend to pronounce french word and sometimes transform them -see rouge (but it's only fair since we do the same sometimes) I guess it doesn't hurt to reiterate it.

The "the French don't have a word for entrepreneur" is supposedly a quote from George Bush [1], and he's ridiculed for it because we all know "entrepreneur" is French.

[1] http://www.snopes.com/quotes/bush.asp

I didn't even know this quote came from anywhere in particular. I honestly believed it was poking fun at the French bureaucracies inability to grow small businesses due to taxes and social charges.

Even a few years ago if you wanted to start a new business in a market that didn't exist yet you would be told it can't be done. For example, "Le Camion qui Fume" had to spend years to get the business license because the concept of the food truck didn't exist in France. Surprisingly, mobile epiceries, bakers, and butchers have existed for years so I don't know why mobile restaurants took so long.

That would explain a lot indeed.

And don't take any offence with what's been said above, it's funny to see a word / idiom / expression being taken over by the english language, as much as the opposite; ie : The Hangover being translated Very Bad Trip.

Does the phrase you're translating as "Very Bad Trip" have the same druggie double meaning in French?
Kinda but it's mostly bad drug experience, whereas The Hangover encompass any substance (especially alcohol).

It's an unimaginative 'translation', making it sound more fancy than the literal french equivalent ("La cuite").