Lost your password? Please enter your email address. You will receive a link and will create a new password via email.

What is the capital of Tunisia?

Please type your username.

Please type your E-Mail.

Please choose the appropriate section so the question can be searched easily.

Please choose suitable Keywords Ex: question, poll.

Type the description thoroughly and in details.

What is the capital of Tunisia?

Does “boire un jus” tend to mean “coffee” or “juice of fruit”?

From as long as I spoke french (~20 years) I never heard someone say boire un jus to say anything else than jus de fruits/légumes/quelque chose (-> fruit/vegetables/anything juice).

I think in some certain context, some people would use it to say drink alcohol but with the sentence s’enfiler un jus instead of boire un jus but as I said, some people in some context.

However, it seems that jus means café in a military slang. I found it there.

I also found on several forums / articles that jus was a word used to design café during the war (the first World-War)

Jus n.m.
Café en argot.
«Près du bivouac passe une rivière boueuse, on prend l’eau, on fait le jus, on aurait dit du café au lait tellement l’eau était sale.» Lettre de combattants, Le Figaro, 30 novembre 1914

If it is a very low quality drink or something with bad taste to wake up in the morning the expression “boire un jus de chaussette” (“drink sock juice”) can be used.

Sometimes it is shortened into “boire un jus”.

So it will depend of the context.

Jus de chaussette

Jus can have a lot of non conventional senses all deriving from its primary meaning, i.e. the liquid extracted from a plant. If no further context boire/prendre un jus means boire/prendre un café. The Dictionnaire culturel en langue française dates the use of jus as meaning café to 1884.
The Dictionnaire du français non conventionnel gives this example:

– Hé, hé, ils boivent le café, fit-il remarquer.
– On dit le jus, retifie l’homme-pie. (H. Barbusse, Le Feu, 1916)

It says the word was adopted as early as 1890 by soldiers who started saying Au jus ! to call for morning coffee.

But it is no way restricted to military use, lots of people (at least in the older generations and in France) will aller prendre un jus where there’s no ambiguity as to the type of liquid involved. When used outside the military I would say it is colloquial rather than slang and I would think not used by the younger generations.

The TLF gives an example from Raymond Queneau:

Il est maintenant devant un jus bouillant sur un zinc (Queneau, Pierrot,1942, p. 55).

A blog about a make of coffee maker (2016):

Bon, t’es où qu’on aille boire un jus ?

On another blog (2013):

le café ce sont des mélanges destinés surtout aux professionnels et j’aimerais bien tomber sur des clients de Brasilia quand je vais boire un jus au bistrot ce sont des cafés autour de 4€ le paquet moins la remise gentiment accordée il ne faut pas s’attendre non plus à des miracles pour un peu plus de 3 balles

Boire un jus is rarely used alone nowadays, but (according to my experience) the few people doing it often mean boire un café indeed.

Example of modern usage seen on a forum:

envoyé le 11/11/2013 16:51
[…]
Depuis je me limite à deux “vrai” cafés par jour, le matin et à la pause de 10h00, le reste en décaféiné. Pour la consommation après le repas on m’a dit la même chose, dans l’idéal il faudrait attendre 45 minutes après la fin du repas pour boire un jus…ce que je ne respecte que très rarement…

This expression might come from un jus de chaussette (“socks juice”) which is a pejorative name for a bad coffee, originating from the 1870 war military slang.

When referring to a fruit juice, either the kind of juice is stated “boire un jus d’orange, de pomme” or the generic “boire un jus de fruit” is used. I have never heard je vais boire un jus alone to mean I’m going to drink a fruit juice although I wouldn’t be surprised to hear it if the context makes clear a café isn’t a possible meaning, for example in a fresh fruit juice shop or at a kids party.

Another reply mention jus can refer to alcoholic beverages, that’s the first time I heard that usage.

Larousse en ligne consigne une acception de jus pour café noir (d’emploi populaire ; ou familier au Wiktionnaire). Je ne la connais pas, mais j’aurais compris soit de manière humoristique au bureau le matin avec le possessif mon pour jus de caféine, soit par référence à ce qui donne du jus (de l’énergie) soit par comparaison anti-conformiste avec la tendance pour les fruits/légumes dans un contexte où d’autres personnes boiraient du jus.

 

Leave a comment

What is the capital of Tunisia?