Some Choice Quotes About the French

Posted on September 17, 2011 by admin

I’m reading a book called 1000 Years of Annoying the French (thanks Joris!) which is a hilariously written and very instructive history of Anglo-French relations. At the end is a set of great quotations that both sides have said about one another, and I want to share some of them here.

“The English do add here and there some other words when speaking, but it is obvious that ‘God-damn’ is the foundation of their language.” – Pierre-Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais
“To err is human. To laze about is Parisian.” – Victor Hugo
“English is just badly pronounced French.” – Georges Clemenceau
“We could never tell whether the Parisians were happy to hear us making mistakes when speaking French, or if they just found the mistakes interesting to listen to.” – Franz Kafka
“I like the French very much, because even when they insult you, they do it so nicely.” – Josephine Baker
“I would rather have a German division in front of me than a French one behind me.” – General Patton

On an unrelated note, all cultures and nations surely can agree that the Eiffel Tower is a stunningly beautiful structure. Every time I see it I am amazed – its incredible height, elegant curves, and the near-transparency of its frame that makes it like a piece of art. When I leave the office I see it through one of the sidestreets and every single time it’s a wonderful sight. I’ve included the photo of it here.

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France: Source Of All Fine Things

Posted on September 11, 2011 by admin

A while ago I mentioned how French make the distinction between Paris and the rest of the country. On top of that, there’s a tendency to discriminate between the Hexagon and the world beyond it. French culture is naturally assumed to be the beacon of Western civilization. And to be honest, they have a point there. To an extent.

While it’s one thing to mock the infatuation with food & drinks culture here (ie don’t, because you come across like an ass), it’s enjoyable to watch a local squirm with a mix of righteousness, anger and a frail self-consciousness when arguing the relative merits of French vs New World wines. And while it’s undoubtedly true that France has enriched world culture with its great arts, this high quality does not extend to French ‘humor’ – which is not so much untranslatable as it is unpalatable.

But one thing that really makes me smile time and time again is when we are speaking in English and my partner pauses to think mid-sentence, and then resumes with the words “I’m sorry, but I don’t know this word in English” and then uses an English word right away. Examples of this are: pistache, bizarre, apricot, copy, labyrinth, massage, and prolonge. I keep a list of this and jot them down whenever they come across.

When I mentioned that the English word for ‘bizarre’ is also ‘bizarre’, the response was confusion, and when I followed that up by saying that English actually has a larger vocabulary than French, the look quickly changed to something in-between indignation and pity. Because surely no other languages have the breadth and the depth of French? Though to be honest English does itself no favors in their eyes with the complete absence of structured grammar and the gratuitous usage of swear words.

After two long weeks stuck in my apartment, tomorrow I will finally venture back out into the world. I’ve been forewarned that now that summer is over, the metro is jam-packed and wildly uncomfortable. I for one am looking forward to regular, continuous human interactions, and surely more metro stories and swear words. To conclude, here’s one photo to commemorate a very enjoyable first summer in Paris.

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A Street To Live For A Lifetime

Posted on August 27, 2011 by admin

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Word of the Week: Douleur

Posted on August 27, 2011 by admin

Do you have pain? Where do you feel the pain? Is the pain more or less than before? On a scale of 1 to 10, how bad is the pain?

I haven’t gotten to learn much French this week as I spent the last few days fielding these questions at a hospital. Douleur, pain, was the key word there. I don’t have a lot of experience with the medical world, but here are some observations anyway.

Damn they are easy with the morphine. I got hooked up and pretty much passed out into delirious oblivion for a good fifteen hours. At night I’d wake up and be utterly confused only for a nurse to walk in, turn the valve once more, and I’d feel the warmth of the morphine coursing through my veins once again. In truth I was happy to be off it because it really messes with your ability to think clearly.

Full service. I was blissfully unaware of what was going on most of the time and they seemed to run the whole thing without needing any input from me. Someone came by at some point to get a copy of my passport. A few times a day a doctor came and looked at my belly. Then they gave me the paperwork to go and I was out of there.

Sexy nurses, or the lack thereof. Dispelling some myths here, the hospital was seriously lacking in the ‘hot French nurse’ category, but that’s OK because all I could have done in my state was to slur half-French half-Dutch at them.

Now I can’t work. They issued me an arret de travail, which essentially forbids me to go to work until September 11. This doesn’t mean I can go on holiday either. I have to be at home every day between 9-11 am and 2-4pm. This is apparently serious business and I’m now stuck at my apartment for the next two weeks…

So now I’m shuffling around the apartment like an old man, hunched over to protect the stitches in my belly (I forgot to mention: I had appendicitis). I am preparing an action plan for groceries which will most likely be “aw fuck it just order everything over the internet”. I’d still like to share some choice words with you.

Je m’en fiche, Je m’en fout, Je m’en tape – I don’t care, I don’t give a shit, I really don’t give a shit
Fourchette, couteau, cuillere – fork, knife spoon. Finally I know these words now.
Feignant – lazy. Probably the word I will use the most in the upcoming two weeks.
Tomber dans les pommes – literally, “to fall into the apples”, it means to faint
Connard – something to say to the slow cutters in the metro: asshole.

Posted in Le French, Mot du Jour | 1 Comment

Post-It Wars

Posted on August 20, 2011 by admin

August is a dead month in France. Everything is closed, everyone is on holiday. Even the homeless guy outside my office has packed up and left. The few leftover folks (in my office, just me and the intern out of 18 people) have to find ways to occupy themselves. And that’s how the Post-It Wars were born.

Look at any office building in Paris this month and you will see a Post-It note version of Pac-Man, Asteroids, an Angry Bird or two, or Cartman staring back at you. Today I even saw an entire tropical paradise, palmtree and all.

It’s a great phenomenon, doubly weird because it’s only referencing Western, ie not specifically French, pop culture. It brings a smile to my face every time I see them, because in the last two weeks I’ve come to relate totally to the complete work ennui that is August here. Here are some pics I stole off the Internet!

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