A violently funny mistake in French on a road sign (#868)

We’ve seen it before: when dans and la come together in colloquial speech, la might lose its L sound leaving us with dans ‘a.

Then, if you say that fast, the remaining ‘a sound just kind of gets swallowed up.

That’s why dans la marde in the expression être dans la marde (to be in shit, trouble) sounds more like dans marde in colloquial speech.

T’es dans’ marde!
(= Tu es dans la marde!)
You’re in shit!
You’re in trouble!
You’re in for it!

I suppose for good style we should include an apostrophe after dans to show that the la was contracted (dans’ marde), but it’s rare in casual writing online to see anybody actually bother.

The same thing can happen with the expression dans la face. It can become dans’ face. Here are some examples from around the Wonderful World Wide Web. I’ll put the apostrophe in for good measure.

Ça fait sept ans que j’ai ça dans’ face.
I’ve had that in my face for seven years.

Essaye de te contrôler avec ça dans’ face 24 heures sur 24.
(You just) try to control yourself with that in your face 24 hours a day.

Maudit internet. Quand on était jeune, câlice, on se disait ça dans’ face.
Damn internet. When we were young, for fuck’s sake, we’d say that to each other’s face.

J’ai juste à y flasher ça dans’ face!
I just have to flash that in his face!

The y here is an informal pronunciation of lui. In full, this sentence would read: j’ai juste à lui flasher ça dans la face.

C’est comme un coup de poing dans’ face.
It’s like a punch in the face.

A friend on Facebook sent me the image below. You can click on it. I’m not sure where the photo was taken, but it doesn’t matter.

There’s a mistake on the sign. Can you understand why the mistake is funny?

Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.

The sign should have said:

Piétons, prenez le trottoir d’en face.
Pedestrians, take the other sidewalk.

Here’s a correct example.

D’en face means “on the opposite side.” But say d’en face aloud. It sounds just like dans face, doesn’t it?

Piétons, prenez le trottoir dans face.
Pedestrians, shove the sidewalk in your face!

_ _ _

Merci Anne-Marie :-D

Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.