Poor Bumpy?

[Kelvin]

During family history research I found an entry in a parish burial register describing someone as a "Pauvre Bossu" My limited French translates this as a "Poor Bumpy". Whilst I think this is a quaint description I'm not sure of the exact meaning, nor why a French expression turns up in a 19th century parish record in deepest Herefordshire. Can anybody explain please?

[JUNKMAN]

I thuink it means a hunchback - as in Quasimodo

[Octavius]

Yes it really means poor hunchback.

There is a film called La L�gende du pauvre bossu
(The Legend of the Poor Hunchback)

[jno]

yes, there are a couple of films called Le Bossu

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0118756/

doesn't really answer your question, though, why anyone should put it in a burial register and why it should be in French in Herefordshire.

[dundurn]

There's actually an award-winning animated short called "Le Pauvre Bossu" - it's based on a fairy story.

As to why someone's used it in Herefordshire - I did hear once of a personnel manager who never liked to write "pregnant" next to an employee's name when they left to have a baby, so he would write enceinte instead, on the grounds that this wasn't so generally obvious. (Only problem was he thought this was pronounced enchant�e!) Perhaps the registrar thought that "poor hunchback" was a bit abrupt.

[kettledrum]

Until quite recently - or possibly even now - adaptations of French are used in legal-type situations ( eg church registers). I remember a great aunt decribing herself as a 'feme sole' (from french femme seule) ie a spinster - when witnessing a legal document in my youth.

And I think feme covert is used to mean a married woman

[fredpuli47]

Kettledrum: In your great aunt's time we did use the old law French to describe marital status and the spelling was not that of modern French and nor was the pronunciation: feme was 'feem ' to lawyers. It was not 'femme' and (approximately) 'fam', as in French today.Not sure when this practice died out but it was certainly still going strong well after the great reforms of the trust and land law in 1925.Law students still need some knowledge of these terms because they are still found in old conveyances and trust deeds even in those from well past those reforms.