Sanguine

Yet another word from Simenon, this time from 'Maigret chez le Coroner', caught my attention.

A story which complements that noticed at reference 1, in that it is built on Maigret being on a fact finding mission (as we would call it now) in the US, rather than on Maigret hosting a chap from Scotland Yard who was on a fact finding mission in France. Including various interesting observations on the differences between being a host for and being a guest on such a mission and on those between coroners' courts in the US and the equivalent process in France (in the 1930's and 1940's). Written just a couple of months before I was hatched.

The word being 'sanguin', used to describe a young airman, one of five who went on the beano with a young woman, a beano which resulted in her being smashed up by a train out in the desert between Tuscon and Nogales - with this last being the den of iniquity to which drunks with cars resorted when the bars in Tuscon shut up shop. The phrase being 'un sanguin, qui devait avoir de gross appétits sexuels', from a few pages into chapter II.

The English word 'sanguine' meant cheerful, optimistic to me, having lost the connection to blood, but which did not seem to fit, so out with Larousse which offered 1) adjective to do with blood and 2) someone who was rather impulsive. Hachette juniors only bothered with the first of these and the sometimes useful online dictionary, Linguee, could not escape from groupe sanguin. Littré petit did a bit better with the suggestion of having too much of it, which starts to tie in with OED, which started with various anodyne adjectival meanings, moved onto someone who was rather blood thirsty and then into the four humours of early modern medicine, of which blood was one. Dominance of this humour was 'indicated by a ruddy countenance and a courageous, hopeful and amorous disposition' - which connects with both Simenon's usage and my rather different prior understanding. Then shifting to the modern hopeful and optimistic. This being followed by getting on for a further three columns, that is to say a page, of compounds and meanings not related to the present case.

I think if I was doing the translation I would settle for something on the lines of hot blooded.

PS: the fence, of current interest, between the two halves of Nogales, is illustrated above. Getty 101586999 will find it.

Reference 1: http://psmv3.blogspot.co.uk/2017/05/rings.html.