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Vous m'avez fichu une de ces frousses !

{compared to}: Vous m'avez fichu une frousse bleue !

{compared to}: Vous m'avez fichu la frousse !

I use this "une de ces" structure when saying, for instance, "tirer une de ces têtes", but I have always wondered which of the three is considered strongest in tone?

Incidentally, what other verbs can I use in saying the following?

Vous m'avez fichu/fiché/collé/flanqué/donné une de ces frousses !

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  • The first two are more emphatic but also less absolute. So it's hard to say which is the “strongest”. Fichu and fiché are both softened versions of foutu. But I see you've already gathered a nice list.
    – Stéphane Gimenez
    Commented Nov 1, 2017 at 17:08
  • @StéphaneGimenez Conjugation tables list "fiché" as the Participe Passé of "ficher/fiche", but doctors around me seem to nearly always use "fichu" instead. Is it related to a regional difference or something?
    – Con-gras-tue-les-chiens
    Commented Nov 1, 2017 at 17:21
  • french.stackexchange.com/questions/20375/…
    – Stéphane Gimenez
    Commented Nov 1, 2017 at 18:30

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The first one would be the strongest in this case. The use of "une/un de ces" heavily relies on the "ces" part:

Vous m'avez fichu une de ces frousses !

Even though the translation for this one would be "You scared me to death", it is much easier to explain the importance of "ces" with a more gross, literal translation: "You gave me one of those fears !"

"ces" and "those" translate the same feeling in this case: they mean that the "frousse" we're talking about isn't just a random "frousse", but that it belongs to a certain category of "frousses". Here, we are implying that it is, indeed, the strongest category of "frousses".

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