# Tell us an interesting random fact you stumbled across (Part 1)

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-1/851674>\
**Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\
**Created:** [April 13, 2020, 3:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-1/851674 "2020-04-13T03:19:22Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
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**Author:** ![Treppenwitz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/treppenwitz/32/3445_2.png) [@Treppenwitz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Treppenwitz)\
**Post date:** [July 10, 2021, 8:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-1/851674/2259 "2021-07-10T20:34:26Z")

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Here’s a pleasing bit of etymology.

I just posted in the [Favourite non-English quotation thread](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-favourite-non-english-quotation/946115) over in IMHO. I went with _Mais où sont les neiges d’antan?_ (But where are the snows of yesteryear?) - and while I know the quote, I don’t know the source, so I had to look it up.

The source is [Ballade des dames du temps jadis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ballade_des_dames_du_temps_jadis), and the wiki page contains this little nugget.

> Particularly famous is its interrogative refrain, Mais où sont les neiges d’antan? This was translated into English by [Dante Gabriel] Rossetti as “Where are the snows of yesteryear?”, **for which he coined the new word yester-year to translate Villon’s antan**. The French word was used in its original sense of “last year”, although both antan and the English yesteryear have now taken on a wider meaning of “years gone by”.

My bold. So: not just a brilliant Pre-Raphaelite painter, huh?

j

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