AFAIK, the word was often used as a synonym for "flâneur" (stroller if the people are walking around aimlessly, loafer if they're mostly idle.)
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Yes, I know, and in 18th c it also refers to anyone who mindlessly gawks at novelties. But it’s hard to render into English, and especially to hang onto the sense that he’s referring to Parisians.
jul 30, 2025, 5:14 pm • 0 0 • view
FWIW, I've read a few papers that referred to "le flâneur" as a uniquely parisian phenomenon in the 18th century. No references handy but I think one of them may have been by Laurent Turcot. Might solve your problem by the wayside?
jul 30, 2025, 5:22 pm • 0 0 • view
Maybe, but I don’t think I can render badaud as flâneur because that’s not a translation, that’s just substituting a different French word. And I don’t think the average anglophone knows what a badaud is (and even flâneur would not mean anything to most of my students)
jul 30, 2025, 5:36 pm • 2 0 • view