February 26, 2009

Mountain dream

What's the matter with you?

The French expression quelle mouche t'a piqué ? reminds me of the rather vulgar English expression "what (bug) crawled up your butt (and died)?" but the French expression is only informal. It's basically asking what's up? why are you getting mad for no apparent reason? In terms of register, the more accurate English translations are expressions like "what's the matter with you?, what's gotten into you?...