Dictionnaire de la langue verte

A playful and surprisingly scholarly voyage opens with the author’s confession that gathering words is like chasing insects: meticulous, obsessive, and oddly satisfying. He treats language as a living collection of tiny creatures, cataloguing quirks, vulgarities and forgotten turns of phrase with the same reverence once reserved for naturalists. The preface sets a tone of wit and modest self‑deprecation, hinting at a lifelong habit of roaming the darker corners of French speech to rescue its stray specimens.

Listeners will be guided through a richly annotated catalogue of “green” expressions—those hidden, ribald or obsolete terms that have slipped out of everyday use. Each entry is peppered with literary and historical references, offering brief anecdotes that illuminate how the words have evolved and why they matter. The result is an entertaining‑yet‑thoughtful portrait of language as a restless, ever‑changing ecosystem, inviting anyone curious about the secret life of words to explore its hidden diversity.