>>16394723>Why are french so arrogant?>"arrogance" is a French word, which entered English to describe the behavior of their (French-speaking) conquerors.is correct
HOWEVER, the French have two words:
- "suffisance", which would translate as "unwarranted arrogance"
- and "arrogance" means more like "superb arrogance"
So in French, "arrogance" is more like the opposite of "false modesty". For people with bragging rights. While "suffisance" is people full of shit but pleased with themselves all the same.
A good example would be chess player Capablanca (who was Cuban not French, but same thing). After a particularly brilliant victory, he said to the press something like "I played this game as perfectly as possible". For which he received a lot of flak in the English-speaking press.
But at the same time, everybody agreed that he was a towering genius in his field. So had bragging rights ; plus, said "hmmm I did alright, if not great" this could be interpreted as "I could do even better if needed".
Of course, if some third-rate player says "I always play perfect games" this would be laughable - but that's "suffisance" not "arrogance".
One of many cases of English using French words but in a somewhat different way. And since as a rule, both Englishmen and Frenchmen suck at foreign languages, they misunderstand each other.
Another example of this would be the quote translated as "nationalism is the betrayal of patriotism" which has been misunderstood by so many English-speaking journalists.
That's again because those are two French words, but they are mostly synonyms in English. So this makes little sense.
