If you take the métro in Montréal, I’m sure you’ve seen some new ads for an energy gum with images of people’s faces all scrunched up. Here are two of them.
What does the text on them mean?
One of the ads says:
Avant de frapper ton mur!
Another one says:
Avant de cogner des clous!
These ads are for an energy gum, so the text in both is telling us that we can chew it if we need a boost. More specifically, avant de frapper ton mur literally means before hitting your wall (i.e., before you reach the point where you can’t go on anymore); avant de cogner des clous literally means before striking nails (i.e., before you nod off to sleep).
frapper son mur
to reach one’s breaking point
to not be able to go on
to get stopped in one’s tracks
This explains why the people in the ads have their faces all scrunched up — they’ve “hit their wall.” The expression frapper un mur also exists, used in the sense of to hit an obstacle.
cogner des clous
to nod off to sleep
Think of a commuter on public transport — his head is bobbing up and down as he falls asleep, wakes up, falls asleep, wakes up… It’s as if his head were a hammer striking nails.
Cogner rhymes with the informal verb pogner that we’ve looked at many times on OffQc. They sound like [kɔɲe] and [pɔɲe]. You can hear pogner pronounced here in this video.
