/məne kɛlkœ̃ ɑ̃ bato/ lit. ‘take someone on a boat’
French idiom, familiar. To tease someone by telling them something untrue as a joke.
Draft Not yet checked by a native French speaker.
How do people use Mener quelqu’un en bateau
?
Familiar, used by everyone in conversation and in the press. The person being fooled is usually a pronoun before the verb: “il te mène en bateau”, “elle me menait en bateau”. To say you were the victim, use “se faire mener en bateau” or “se laisser mener en bateau”. It can be a harmless wind-up, but just as often it means a real con, so it’s stronger than English pulling someone’s leg.
Also said mener en bateau, se faire mener en bateau
Mener quelqu’un en bateau
in real sentences
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Il te mène en bateau.
He’s leading you up the garden path.
Tatoeba, sentence by unsquare, translation by unsquare, CC BY 2.0 FR
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Tu t’es bien fait mener en bateau.
You’ve been properly led up the garden path.
Tatoeba, sentence by sacredceltic, translation by Zifre, CC BY 2.0 FR
Where does Mener quelqu’un en bateau
come from?
French Wiktionary explains it only as mener (to lead) plus en bateau (by boat) and gives no date or story. The oldest example it quotes is from L’Humanité in 2007, which tells you about Wiktionary’s examples more than about the phrase’s age. There’s a related expression, “monter un bateau” (to set up a hoax), but no source I found explains why boats mean lies in French.
Mistakes learners make with Mener quelqu’un en bateau
Putting the pronoun after the verb as in English. It’s “il me mène en bateau”, not “il mène moi en bateau”. And it’s “en bateau”, never “dans un bateau”.
Other French idioms like Mener quelqu’un en bateau
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?
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