French phrases meaning get out or go away?

[Dinosaur]

I thought there was a French phrase Gay avec which meant get out or go away. It is my understanding that it was rude.

Yesterday somebody told me that this was a Yiddish, German, or Hebrew phrase.

Can anyone here enlighten me on the above?

The above is my phonetic version of the phrase. I spent a lot of time in France & Belgium. I started learning via use of a French/English dictionary, and then did most of the learning via conversation with French speakers. I did not learn how to spell or write the language, so Gay avec is probably not the correct spelling.

[mathman]

It is Yiddish and it is the equivalent of the English "scram". Being Yiddish, it is normally spelled using the Yiddish alphabet, which is essentially the same as the Hebrew alphabet.

[Fraggle Rocker]

It's only two syllables: Gey vek. Yiddish is descended from medieval German. This is simply the German words geh, the imperative of the verb gehen, the same word as English "go," plus Weg, the same word as English "way." It's a colloquial way of saying, literally, "go away."

The rules for transcribing Yiddish in the Latin alphabet are not rigorous, but the one concern that overrides everything is: Don't write it in German even if it's perfect German. So we write gey vek instead of geh Weg, just as we write Yiddish instead of Jüdisch.

[Anti-Flag]

Gay avec is probably not the correct spelling.
I'm glad you said that. Avec translates as 'with'.

[Dinosaur]

Are there French speakers here who can verify that there is no such French phrase?

Any who can supply some French phases meaning get out or go away?

[Cellar_Door]

*Puts on Pseudo-Linguist Hat*

They shout 'allez' (al-lay) a lot when urging someone to move (esp. run away) - which literally is simply the imperative form of 'go'. As for go-away, I've never really come across it.

[glaucon]

*Puts on Pseudo-Linguist Hat*

They shout 'allez' (al-lay) a lot when urging someone to move (esp. run away) - which literally is simply the imperative form of 'go'. As for go-away, I've never really come across it.


Allez works. But only for plural.

Singular would be: Va t'en.


Are there French speakers here who can verify that there is no such French phrase?

Any who can supply some French phases meaning get out or go away?

See above.

[Fraggle Rocker]

Allez works. But only for plural. Singular would be: Va t'en.
Vous, the second-person plural pronoun, is also used as the polite singular. This phenomenon is quite common in the Indo-European languages, including English. "Thou" has passed into almost complete obscurity, and in the American South they have coined the word "you-all" to fill the void for a plural pronoun, complete with the possessive form "you-all's".

As for the original phrase gey (a)vek having a French origin, I doubt it. The French word gai means "happy," and in fact is the source of our word "gay." Gey vek is a commonly heard Yiddish phrase, even among Jewish people who don't really speak Yiddish, like mishpokha, "family," or gonef, "thief" (although the latter two are of Hebrew origin rather than German). Many of these words have seeped into colloquial American English, at least in the big cities. I'm sure a few have also made it into French.