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7d]My lecturer's a fool to expose English as a block to communications.[6,9]
????O?/ ??N?T?I?E

Cordon Sanitaire

rm53-thanks-there was I thinking of English words!

Could someone explain please ?

I might be very stupid but I cannot make any sense of the (French) answer (cordon sanitaire) to:

7d My lecturer's a fool to expose English as a block to communications (6,9)

I think some French words/expressions confuse me even more than their pure English equivalent because they do not always mean the same thing as in French, and also because I am amazed to see how many of them are commonly used in English!

French phrase that, literally translated, means "sanitary cordon". It originally denoted a barrier implemented to stop the spread of disease, such as the Black Death. The term has also often been used in English in a metaphorical sense to refer to attempts to prevent the spread of an ideology deemed unwanted or dangerous such as the containment policy adopted by George F. Kennan against the Soviet Union.

Thanks Eirlys, so this expression means precisely the same thing in both languates (including the prevention of certain ideology )

But ! as I said, brain is obviously not in gear this morning, for I still don't understand the parsing of that clue !

Cor ( my) don's a nit air e

definition is : block to communicatios
My! : Cor!
lecturer's : Don's

a fool : a nit
to expose: to air
English : E

Ah! Now it makes sense and it is in fact quite easy - as I said, not with it yet!

Thanks Zozozo for detailed parsing !

And thanks again Eirlys! :)