"Do I get a last laugh here?" Topic

Way back in the mists of the previous century, I was a grad student at Penn State.
My girlfriend had some roommates at her apartment.
One of them had a friend in visiting from France.
I had been painting some Minifigs (pre PB!) Ancients, one of which was Vercingetorix.
so, my gf encouraged me to show off my painted figures, including the V-man himself.
The French tart laughed uproariously at my pronunciation of "Vercingetorix". There was genuine ridicule in her voice, almost a paradigm of the haughty French know-it-all. "You pronounce eet so fonny! Hee Hee Hee!)
Well, I pronounced it exactly like my Church Latin would lead me to. 'Nuff said.

So, I am listening to a show on Alesia on the Military History Channel, and every one of them there "scholars" pronounce it EXACTLY as I did!

So, THERE! You haughty French person you! Haw haw haw back at you!

(I do not remember if she was attractive or not, oddly enough. I was so annoyed at her that I cannot remember. Besides, my gf was pretty hot herself, so… perhaps I showed discretion.)

Of course I am not too thrilled with their pronunciation of "onager" on that show.
"oh-NOG-er"?
I prefer "ON-a-ger" meself.

Were the scholars French? If not then it doesn't matter one bit how they pronounced it…

Did he pronounce it Asterix?

Are French "scholars" Gauls?

Saw a pack of young French tourists near my place the other day looking for the "lower eest side". I indicated it was the whole area. Then I looked at their guide map and found the intersection we were at and pointed at the map. They had no clue what I meant (and less English). Out of some dark recess came "nous sommes ici". (We are here) They were excited that I spoke French. I told them that was it, no more French and directed them north towards the tenement museum. They were cute, young and silly.

In a graduate seminar on WWII at Rice University in 1969, I was gently corrected as to the pronunciation of the Maginot line. (Not MAG -eh – not?)

Courteous people are courteous people, and rude boors are rude boors. I have found that courtesy predominates in my South.

I had, of course, read of the Majh-eh-know Line hundreds of times, but growing up in East Texas one does not hear it -- nor any French! -- pronounced much at all.

What would good old George Washington say if he could hear you now? The Auld Alliance with the French is an enduring example of international relationships at their finest.

Give her a call, explain how you were made to feel, and patch them things up.

link

Perhaps you should offer to meet up in some neutral area for her to aplogise to you.

Maybe Lisester Square or WATerLOO toob stations…..

Your "French" tourists may have been from Quebec

One of my father's few war stories (he didn't talk about it much) was of a new Lieutenant that pronounced debris: der-bis

Perhaps you should offer to meet up in some neutral area for her to aplogise to you.

Oh, she would be an old lady by now. That was back in 1975.
Even being French, I would not want to bother.

Quite right, John.

Now, I shall mock you next weekend for that bit of history.

Just because.

Eric

"I had, of course, read of the Majh-eh-know Line hundreds of times, but growing up in East Texas one does not hear it -- nor any French! -- pronounced much at all."

And if it was, it wasn't spoken for long.
Thank you, Sheldon Cooper.

Years ago getting ready to head to an SCA weekend event I was at the liquor store with a couple of fellow SCAers (coeds) and announced to the young lady at my side in the aisle that I was going to go find a nice bottle of bow-yo-lay. Having taken French she immediately laughed and corrected my gaffe.

Sad part is that I knew enough about French (bon-jour) that had I thought about it I wouldn't have used a Germanic pronunciation for the j.

Thank you, Sheldon Cooper.

I'm not as smart as he is, nor quite as much a nerd, but our mothers are a bit alike.

As a child, I was chagrined to learn the word was pronounced "miss-led" – I much preferred "missiled!"

My understanding is that modern French is largely derived from Latin, with some Frankish/Germanic influence. Practically nothing of Gallic origin survives. The name is Latinized, and your pronunciation was probably as good as hers.

By the way, in the US, we use two different pronunciations of "Arkansas," both heavily Anglicized versions of a French word drawn from a Native American word. I suspect both are wrong. Yet folks are happy to correct me when I use the less common version. I continue to use it, anyway.

Grelber

In east Texas (near the border -- the "tri-state area with TX, ARK, and LA -- we say Ark-an-SAW.

If it is any consolation, the French cultural snootiness towards America is probably our fault. They are the same with us British as well.

They actually tend to lump us all together in a sort of uncultured, lowbrow, anarchic 'Anglo' world. There was a French politician not long ago who was attacking something the British Government had done ( or wanted to, or said, or something…) who complained of "Anglo individualism". Like that is a bad thing……

My only experience with this was in the 1970's when I was touring in France I was straight out of college where I had a year of French. Not a linguist, but enough to order a plate of something or find out where the bathroom was.

At one place I said something to a person sitting at the table. She said how bad I had pronounced some French Words. I asked "Did you understand what I said?" She said yes. "I said "Good then my French is adequate. The point of language is to be understood. You understood."
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At one place I said something to a person sitting at the table. She said how bad I had pronounced some French Words. I asked "Did you understand what I said?" She said yes. "I said "Good then my French is adequate. The point of language is to be understood. You understood."

Touché!

Forgot this earlier.

I read some years ago (forget the source) that while in nearly every country around the world that the locals appreciate it if someone even makes an attempt to speak their language. One of the two mentioned was France.

Apparently though, the Chinese are even more offended by foreigners attempts to speak Chinese. The author of the piece stated that he had asked a Chinese woman of his acquaintance why this was so. As I remember it her reply was ' How would you feel if a dog came up to you and attempted to speak in English?'

The writer did note that immediately afterwards a look of chagrin crossed the woman's face.

When I passed this story on to the young lady of my previous anecdote she disagreed with the comment on the French. In her experience (due to her having taken 4 years of French classes at school her parents used her as a translator on their trip to France) the French she interacted with appreciated her use of their language. I countered that being an attractive young woman probably overrode other considerations with at least the males…

I would have told the Chinese women. "if my dog could speak English even badly, I could save a lot on vet bills as he could tell me what's wrong with him. Of course you eat your dogs so like the great Karl Marx said, "you are what you eat."

As for the Frog girl, after four years of French she better speak French well or her parents wasted their money.

Paris' airport is, apparently, pronounced "Chah de Ger". If they don't use half the letters, why should we properly use the other half?

On the flip side, I've been warmly and genuinely informed by more than one American that I speak really good English for an Australian. My now-standard response is to say thank you and mention that my parents thought it was important that I learnt it.

I spent the summer after graduation in Denmark and Sweden. After a while I started to be able to follow Danish conversations but any time I open my mouth German came out (I had 3 years in high school.) By Sweden I was at least using some Scandinavian words. Once on a train, I offered an answer to a question, then somebody said some like "wait that was Swedish." They were pleasantly surprised and amused (in a good way.)

The only experience that I have had with the spoken French Language was when I was in the Marine Corps in the late 80's and was in Marseille. 1st instance my frend who spoke french and I were at a McDonalds. He ordered and walked away. I then proceeded in German. Surprisingly they had no problems understanding. The 2nd was some frenchman screaming at me and pounding on the phone booth when I was trying to call my girfriend home in the states. Lets, just say that it is not wise to disrupt the long distance call of a Marine and 4 of his friends.

From my experience of the French (and I have been to France quite a few times), the supposed rudeness of the French is largely a myth propagated by the English and Americans. I have never experienced any notable rudeness and I have generally found the natives to be exceedingly polite and friendly. I have had no trouble with my attempts to speak French. I have found that people are happy to try and work with you on the language thing and often amused (in a friendly way) with your mangling of their language. Maybe this is just an Australian thing.

Quebecois are also supposed to have had the traditional French (actually IMO Parisian) "good manners bypass", but I found them generally pleasant if you tried to speak French first (mind you, the first two people I tried it on both turned out to be American tourists – one was a Noo Yoiker and after a few minutes we decided we'd understand each other better if we spoke French instead of English).

The one exception was in Montreal, where any indication that you weren't local led to a snooty look and silence.

The one exception was in Montreal, where any indication that you weren't local led to a snooty look and silence.

Until your looking to buy or pay.