Not Maigret

Somewhere recently, probably in the Maigret story of 1933 called 'Maigret', the last story of the first cycle, I came across the splendid phrase 'conter fleurette', for which murmur sweet nothings might sometimes be the appropriate translation, but which is more often rendered as flirt. Particularly catching my attention as we have just got to the part of the heritage BBC version of the Forsyte Saga, perhaps for the third time, where the dodgy Fleur is centre stage.

And then in reference 1, we have 'voile latine', a triangular sail widely used in the Latin part of the Mediterranean. From which our 'lateen', a sort of sail I associate more with the Arabs and Muslims of the Indian Ocean, as per snap above. The sort of sail one finds on dhows. Perhaps my association is a relic of empire, when we were much more interested in the Indian Ocean than the Mediterranean, the latter only being of interest as being on the main road to the former.

Simenon also offers the 'tartane', a sailing boat with a lateen main sail, sometimes with a small mast aft, once much used by the Latin coasting trade, particularly by the island Greeks. An oxymoron? Which last took a while to recover, with my being blocked by malapropism.

PS: I wonder where the Arabs of the Persian Gulf got their timber from? I don't suppose there has been much in the way of timber trees on the Arabian peninsular for a very long time.

Reference 1: Le Grand-Langustier - Simenon - 1933. Volume V of the collected works. This story being part of the interlude between the first and second cycles of Maigret stories.