Nashing Teeth

LEXI-CONTRARY
posted on 2006-05-01

The Brits have masturbated all over the French language rendering it, well, British. Take the 'room with en suite'. This literally means 'room with follows'. Hasn't anyone one from Great Britain ever been IN a French hotel? It would have been obvious that the real French describe a room with bath as 'chambre avec salle de bain'. 'En Suite'??? Pretentious gits - sorry, Brits!

Now, I'm on a roll, I resent the British, and subsequently Irish, use of French names for vegetables which are not necessarily the domain of France, e.g., 'Aubergines' for 'Eggplant', 'Mange tout' for 'Snow Peas', 'Courgettes' for 'Zucchini' (well, Americans can't think of an English word for every veg). Technically it should be 'marrow'.

The most amusing example of how the British really are clueless about the French language comes from a story I heard about an attempt to assuage the hundreds of years these two nations have been at each other's throats by holding a 'Fair' alternately, in each country, on an annual basis. Once, when it was England's turn, they thought up a 'Garage Sale' theme. Not knowing the word for 'sale' in French, they created a banner at the entrance which read: 'Sale Francais'. Those of you who do speak French will readily understand why, upon seeing the banner, the French delegation turned on its heels never to return. 'Sale' means 'dirty' in French!

My mother was right, i.e. either call it 'Duck with Orange Sauce' or Canard a L'orange. Same goes for Grand Prix; either pronounce it 'Gran Pree' or 'Grand Pricks'. Again, 'Papier-Mache'; either call it 'pa-pee-ay mash-ay' by its proper name or call it 'paper ma-chee'. Another pet peeve is the word 'lingerie'. Why on earth do people give it an 'ay' sound at the end of this word. It should be pronounced 'lan-jer-ee'. There is no accent aigue on the final 'e'; so, why on earth do people pronounce it as such?

Has anyone ever figured out why, when speaking of Roman emperors, it's okay in English to mix the English title e.g.'emperor' with the guy's Latin name, e.g. 'Augustus'. Why isn't he 'Emperor August' as in other languages? The French never say l'empereur Augustus, it's l'empereur Auguste. Italians; l'imperatore Augusto. Germans; Kaiser August.

Americans are worse than the Brits. Here's another one: 'a la mode'. This is used, mostly in American 'greasy spoon' diners, to denote your pie comes 'with vanilla ice cream'. How that became 'pie a la mode' is beyond me as it was there when I was just a little 'whipper snapper' - don't ask what that is. Say, here's another American bastardization of French - 'au jus'. What's wrong with words which mean in French 'with juice'? It's wrong when you have Roast Beef on the menu 'with au jus'. IT'S REDUNDANT!!!!

American say chaise LOUNGE for a chaise LONGUE. They even spell it LOUNGE!! And that's not even minding how they pronounce "chaise": they pronounce the 'ch' hard, and say 'chase' (as in a car chase). So we end up with a CHASE LOUNGE, as in a parlour where you scoot around after the maid.

'Voulez-vous coucher avec moi?' The only reason people say this to someone they want to flirt with is because they heard it in a song from the 70's. If they understood French, they would know it's more appropriate to use the informal second person singular, i.e, 'veux-tu coucher avec moi'. Or better, 'Baisse-moi'; which doesn't mean anything innocent like 'kiss me' ..... you fool!

'No problemo'? No, sorry; this is an exception to the rule. Though 'problema' is masculine; its suffix is an 'a' in both Spanish and Italian.

Wow, here's a bit of silliness; the abundance of names for the same food, e.g. 'chick peas', 'ceci beans', and 'garbanzos' for the same bean. Then there's Filbert and Hazel nut - same nut! Must be lawyers who think these up.

Now here is something I find annoying; nobody uses verbs anymore. What happened to: 'he replied', 'she demurred', 'they acquiesced', 'he assented', 'she retorted', 'they grumbled', 'he repined', etc.? Today, a typical monologue could be 'she goes "do you want to eat out?" and I go "I'm on a diet" and she's all "well, can't you eat a salad?" and I go " can't you go with someone else?"'. Very elevated communication, n'est-ce pas? 'Go', if you have no vocabulary, 'no problemo'!

'As it were'? Does anyone really need me to go into this one? Who ever started it up was a moron. Who ever carries the torch is........

'Momentarily', many use it to mean 'in just a moment', but it really means 'FOR just a moment'. So, if you find yourself on a plane hearing an attendant saying 'Ladies and gentlemen, we will be landing momentarily', this really means 'Ladies and gentlemen, we will be landing for just a moment.'

Redundancy? Yes, for years people have felt the need to emphasize an adjective by adding one more of an identical meaning, e.g. 'tiny little' as in 'it was such a tiny little kitten - so cute'. Did this stem from that 60's song 'Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polka-Dot Bikini'?

The Irish seem to think it's cute to say 'feck it' instead of 'fuck it'; or, 'shite', instead of 'shit'. Who is kidding whom?

American blacks prefer to be called 'Afro Americans'. My question is why? There are white people from Kenya, South Africa, Zimbabwe, etc. who take on American citizenship. Take some advice from a white American; you are black Americans - not Afro Americans. Afros went out of style years ago. Grow up and just call yourselves Americans. Oh, one more thing, 'Native Americans'? You guys want to be singled out; then call yourselves what you really are technically, i.e. 'aborigines'. Native Americans can also be Inuits from Canada and indigenous Mexicans - even tribes from South America are 'Native Americans'. Oh right, 'Latinos'? Do you speak Latin? Are your ancestors Ancient Romans? I....DON"T...THINK....SO! No, you are not 'Latinos'; you are 'Hispanic'. So, all of you - stop showing how ignorant you are!

Lately, Americans are using the word 'Segway' to mean 'veer off', 'digress', 'switch'. I find it irritating. I'm one of the few on this side of the pond who knows what a Segway is and have seen one in action. 'Surf the net' or 'channel surfing' are cool; 'segwaying' in a discussion is not.

'At that particular point in time' - isn't that the same as 'then'? Oh well, guess I should end ...... at this particular point in time.