Why do I need to know se mettre la rate au court-bouillon?
This French expression might sound ancient but it actually only dates back to the 20th century and is used in every day language. It is an exaggerated metaphor that sounds quite absurd.
What does it mean?
The expression se mettre la rate au court-bouillon, roughly pronounced suh met-ruh lah raht oh koor boo-yon (listen here), literally translates to “to put one’s spleen into a poaching broth”, but in reality it means “to get all worked up over something”.
So why spleen? And why broth?
First of all, the word rate refers to the human organ, the spleen. For a long time, doctors suspected it of producing black bile, a substance theorised by ancient physicians as the cause of sadness and anxiety. People, therefore, believed that one had to faire rire la rate (make the spleen laugh) by eating roots like black radish or dandelion to better deal with the winter months and maintain good spirits.
Other French expressions include se dilater la rate, meaning “to laugh”, or se décharger la rate to mean “letting out one’s anger”. The spleen thus remains associated with moods, whether good or bad.
It’s also used in more serious medical contexts, however, to discuss the organ – for example if you had ruptured your spleen in an accident.
Court-bouillon (stock), on the other hand, is a quickly-cooked broth used for poaching other foods, most commonly fish or seafood. The word bouillon (broth) has been used since the 13th century to refer to liquid food in which certain substances are boiled, and is still widely used in cooking contexts.
The idea was that when you were angry or upset, your spleen would contract, as if it were immersed in a hot broth. But the true origins remain uncertain.
The expression is featured as the title of a work by the writer Frédéric Dard, also known as San Antonio, La rate au court-bouillon, published in 1965. It later appears in a slang dictionary published in 1970 by the writers Alphonse Boudard and Étienne Luc. From slang, it seems to have entered everyday language.
Use it like this
Ça ne sert à rien de se mettre la rate au court-bouillon, tu ne peux rien changer à la situation. – It’s useless to get all worked up over this; you can’t change anything about the situation.
Ne te mets pas la rate au court-bouillon. On finira le projet demain. – Don’t get all stressed over this. We’ll finish the project tomorrow.
Il se met la rate au court-bouillon pour tout, cela doit être épuisant. – He worries all the time about everything, it must be exhausting.
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