Hi! I'm having trouble with a word in the novel I'm reading. I'll paste a few sentences below to show the context.
La rosée du matin mouilla mes pantoufles. Je pris soin de les enlever en rentrant, pour éviter les traces sur le parquet ciré. J’enfilai les patins que ma grand-mère affectionnait tant et je me dirigeai vers la cuisine.
In every online translator and dictionary I've tried, les patins translates to "the skates" but that makes no sense here. A grandmother isn't likely to love rollerskates, especially on her waxed parquet floor. This isn't a humorous novel so I don't think it is sarcasm, so maybe it's slang? My guess would have been slippers if it hadn't used pantoufles as slippers in the previous sentence. I've pasted my translation below, in case I have anything else incorrect. TIA
The morning dew wet my slippers. I took care to remove them when I came home, to avoid traces on the waxed parquet floor. I put on the skates my grandmother so loved and I headed for the kitchen.
Hello, yes it's like slippers, especially as she says "enfiler", which means she puts them on. But they are called "patins" because some of them (see picture below) can't be worn, you just walk on them and slide, so as not to leave traces on a varnished wooden floor.
Ah, les patins... A typical grandma's trick ; For every Frenchperson born in middle or upper-middle class, that is something like a "madeleine de Proust". Grand-aunts of mine - two adorable elderly spinsters living together in an un untransformed twenties' style flat - stil used bee wax for their wooden floor in the eighties (it was as slippery as if it were ice). And of course, les patins....
La plupart des occasions des troubles du monde sont grammairiennes (Montaigne, II.12)
So are these not in use anymore? Is that why I couldn't find them as a definition of the word? I did see "cloth pads" listed in one dictionary but it gave no indication that it meant something used to polish a floor nor something you stand on, so I didn't connect it.
Sisyphe wrote: ↑17 Nov 2019 16:24 Ah, les patins... A typical grandma's trick ; For every Frenchperson born in middle or upper-middle class, that is something like a "madeleine de Proust". Grand-aunts of mine - two adorable elderly spinsters living together in an un untransformed twenties' style flat - stil used bee wax for their wooden floor in the eighties (it was as slippery as if it were ice). And of course, les patins....
Ah, les patins... A typical grandma's trick 
; For every Frenchperson born in middle or upper-middle class, that is something like a "