Monday, February 22, 2010
Life, Love and Linguistics
L'amour est comme le 'e instable' en phonétique française-- parfois il est là mais non-prononcé, parfois il n'est pas là et c'est juste une erreur de pronunciation...
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
Iguana Alerts, Non-Violent Neighbors and Unpronounced 'H's
Some recent quotes:
A friend in Fort Lauderdale on the cold in Florida: "hibernating iguanas have been falling from the trees; the news said to watch out for falling iguanas."
My neighbors when the lights were out on EVERY floor in my building and I ran into them in the dark coming home at 2 am Sunday morning : "Don't worry, Madame, we're not going to attack you."
At a dinner party:
Me, reacting to hearing an anecdote: "What, another story about you in your underwear!?"
On discovering the joys of agriculture: "Woofing-- you know, that program 'Working On Organic Farms...'"
On English sentence structure (or um, the French advantage):
Me: So, in English we use compound nouns which often make English sentences shorter than French ones. Remember when I checked your translation? Everything is longer in French.
Male student (flirtatiously) : Why, thank you.
Me: I meant sentence length.
After a recent theater date:
Me, to my French cavalier: "I swear, I had no idea there would be so many naked men in this play..." I think he was traumatised, haven't heard from him since...
At the Irish dance lesson:
French announcer explaining a new step: "This is called 'i-gate.' For those of you who've studied English, it's spelled with an 'h'."
Me, to my adorable French partner: "yes, and you have to specify that because it's not like anyone in France would actually pronounce the 'h'..."
A friend in Fort Lauderdale on the cold in Florida: "hibernating iguanas have been falling from the trees; the news said to watch out for falling iguanas."
My neighbors when the lights were out on EVERY floor in my building and I ran into them in the dark coming home at 2 am Sunday morning : "Don't worry, Madame, we're not going to attack you."
At a dinner party:
Me, reacting to hearing an anecdote: "What, another story about you in your underwear!?"
On discovering the joys of agriculture: "Woofing-- you know, that program 'Working On Organic Farms...'"
On English sentence structure (or um, the French advantage):
Me: So, in English we use compound nouns which often make English sentences shorter than French ones. Remember when I checked your translation? Everything is longer in French.
Male student (flirtatiously) : Why, thank you.
Me: I meant sentence length.
After a recent theater date:
Me, to my French cavalier: "I swear, I had no idea there would be so many naked men in this play..." I think he was traumatised, haven't heard from him since...
At the Irish dance lesson:
French announcer explaining a new step: "This is called 'i-gate.' For those of you who've studied English, it's spelled with an 'h'."
Me, to my adorable French partner: "yes, and you have to specify that because it's not like anyone in France would actually pronounce the 'h'..."
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
Smile, C'est La Revolution!
The Disillusioned Suburban Youth who usually drink, smoke and sexually harass women in one of my neighborhood metro stations (obviously, the sleazier one) had a new one for me today with was oddly sincere, charming and made me smile even bigger:
"You look happy, Madame, what happened in your life today?"
Normally, no one smiles in Parisian public transport. It's kind of against the Parisian code of life as we know it. I think I've never smiled in the metro ever before for this very reason.
Instead, you have to put on your "metro face" which is stony and expressionless yet also hints at deep overwheming depression and untold suffering induced by being forced to share space with your idiot fellow commuters and the bumbling RATP bureaucracy (the French transportation authority) that morning. Your general attitude should say something like, no one has ever experienced such soul crushing existential merde as I have this morning. It also helps if you sigh dramatically (the ever eloquent French "pfft" sound) and roll your eyes a lot.
I was glad that the local neighborhood thugs, in their devotion to rejecting the dominant paradigm, appreciated the deviant social behaviour which is a rebelliously irrepressible smile in the Paris metro.
"You look happy, Madame, what happened in your life today?"
Normally, no one smiles in Parisian public transport. It's kind of against the Parisian code of life as we know it. I think I've never smiled in the metro ever before for this very reason.
Instead, you have to put on your "metro face" which is stony and expressionless yet also hints at deep overwheming depression and untold suffering induced by being forced to share space with your idiot fellow commuters and the bumbling RATP bureaucracy (the French transportation authority) that morning. Your general attitude should say something like, no one has ever experienced such soul crushing existential merde as I have this morning. It also helps if you sigh dramatically (the ever eloquent French "pfft" sound) and roll your eyes a lot.
I was glad that the local neighborhood thugs, in their devotion to rejecting the dominant paradigm, appreciated the deviant social behaviour which is a rebelliously irrepressible smile in the Paris metro.
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