this post was submitted on 12 May 2025
262 points (94.6% liked)
memes
21499 readers
2659 users here now
Community rules
1. Be civil
No trolling, bigotry or other insulting / annoying behaviour
2. No politics
This is non-politics community. For political memes please go to !politicalmemes@lemmy.world
3. No recent reposts
Check for reposts when posting a meme, you can only repost after 1 month
4. No bots
No bots without the express approval of the mods or the admins
5. No Spam/Ads/AI Slop
No advertisements or spam. This is an instance rule and the only way to live. We also consider AI slop to be spam in this community and is subject to removal.
A collection of some classic Lemmy memes for your enjoyment
Sister communities
- !tenforward@lemmy.world : Star Trek memes, chat and shitposts
- !lemmyshitpost@lemmy.world : Lemmy Shitposts, anything and everything goes.
- !linuxmemes@lemmy.world : Linux themed memes
- !comicstrips@lemmy.world : for those who love comic stories.
founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Isn't pedalo an insult in French?
Hopefully
A bit of searching and I found the word just means pedals in esperanto. For some reason the word pédale has another meaning of "faggot". I can't find any etymology for it, but probably it's a changed spelling of pédéraste which translates to boy-lover - and I've heard Russians scream it at me in online games.
In conclusion, not directly a French insult, but maybe?
Pédalo is the word for those pedal propelled boats you can rent in touristy spots, like with the kids slide at the back. The rest of what you said about pédale is all correct.
Switch to English wiktionary for pédale and it suggests also looking at the shorter version of the word, where it is explained where it comes from and - guess what - you're exactly right.
Also pederast comes from ancient greek which explains how widespread it is. Pede/pederast is commonly used in Estonian as well, as an insult. Usually just the equivalent of faggot, but boy lover
I speak french and kid me imagined pédale was referring to the way a bike pedal rotates down with gravity the same way the stereotypical gay was walking with broken wrists. (Same as tapette) Yeah I'm not proud of how my generation treated the gays. Trying to do better with my kids.
Broken wrists? What? Is that a messed up translation or is it a stereotype in France?
More of a messed up stereotype stemming from how a drag's hands behave on a cat walk.
You're thinking about pédale