how do the french raise hell

[swedeheart]

I've always wondered about the title of Truffaut's film Les Quatre Cents Coups/The 400 Blows. Thanks to Wikipedia I now understand the origin of the title but I'm still wondering about the origin of the expression as such. Any ideas?

Wikipedia:
The English title is a straight translation of the French, but misses its meaning, as the French title refers to the expression "faire les quatre cents coups", which means "to raise hell". On the first American prints, subtitler and dubber Noelle Gilmore gave the film the title Wild Oats, but the distributor did not like that title, and reverted it to The 400 Blows, which led some to think the film covered the topic of corporal punishment.

[heathfield]

Hi Swedeheart. Have a look here...

http://french.about.c.../faireles400coups.htm

And click on the 'French blog' link to see what others have made of it.

[swedeheart]

OMG heathfield, that helps immensely! I wasn't even aware that 'coup' could mean 'trick'! I don't speak French so I don't get all of the comments but the trick explanation and the Montauban anecdote do it for me, I'm a happy Swede now:)

[jno]

I must say, the Montauban story sounds suspiciously like folk etymology, like 'posh' meaning Port Out Starboard Home - cute but unreliable.

[swedeheart]

Absolutely, jno. 400 tricks/pranks sounds much more plausible. But Montauban is a good story too and I think it's always an advantage to be presented with a multitude of dead sure (not!) explanations cos that reminds us that most of the time we just don't know how a certain expression came to be. It's like archaeology: There's a lot more guess work involved in that, too, than we laymen tend to be aware of.

If anyone else is interested in this and speaks French* I would really appreciate it if you'd have a look at this Wikipedia article and see if it adds anything to what has already been posted http://fr.wikipedia.o...ts_Coups_de_Montauban

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*Completely unrelated to what we're talking about but that wording of mine reminded me of a combat reporter - British I believe - who once heard himself saying to a group of women "Anyone here been raped and speaks English?"