If you've read the comments on my last post, you know that all 2.5 of my regular readers have been insistently demanding that I start blogging again, here in America. Well, actually, there were just a few half-hearted inquiries as to why I had stopped writing, and now my former readers seem more excited about Ann blogging about the porn she's writing in Iowa, or something like that. Also, one reader compared my writing to compost.
It's so nice to feel loved.
Anyway, wanted or not, I do eventually plan to write about what it's like to be back in the U.S.A., but like some blind and soft-fleshed little creature crawling out from its protective shell for the first time, I'm not feeling quite ready to tell you my impressions of this strange and frightening new world just yet. So for now, I'll just share a few of the resolutions I've made to maintain my own personal integrity, as well as that of my adopted other-homeland.
THINGS I WILL NOT DO, NOW THAT I AM BACK IN AMERICA:
1) Use the word "entrée" to refer to the main dish of a meal. Has anyone in America ever noticed the striking similarity between "entrée" and "entry"? As in "beginning", or "starter", or "appetizer"?! That's right, folks, "entrée" means "appetizer", and I can't even stand to think about the idiot who got the entrée=main dish mistranslation started and managed to spread it nationwide! Every time I open a menu here, I spend several moments trying to figure out why the restaurant doesn't have any main dishes, but two separate categories of appetizers. So while speaking English in restaurants here, I will do my best to protect la belle langue française and never let the word entrée cross my lips.
2) Say "I'm good," when I mean "No, thank you." (For P & A)
3) Pronounce words in English as if they were French (sorry, Ann). I don't care how many cool kids whom I've never heard of (Stacy and Clinton, Ina? Seriously, I have no clue.) are doing it; it's just pretentious. I don't want everyone around me to think that I'm trying to be better than them just because I've lived in France and can pronounce French words correctly. I much prefer to live in the silent certainty that I don't need to pronounce French words correctly in English, because I've lived in France and am therefore obviously superior to everyone else.
4) Say "ATM machine" and "PIN number." (Actually, these are long-standing resolutions of mine which have nothing to do with loyalty to France, but they're important enough to merit mention here.) If you don't know why it's evil to say these things, please take a moment to consider what the final letter in each abbreviation stands, and then leave my blog and never come back.
5) Anything else that comes to mind.
P.S. Thanks to Ann for the lovely, if unsolicited, guest blogging. Feel free to continue whenever you want.
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6 comments:
Write on!
I was lucky to hear about your bloginning via one of the Yarnery folks.
Love it it when Google Reader pops up your blog.
I'm in Minneapolis near Lake Nokomis..looking forward to hearing about your re-entry.
Hi Steph,
Welcome back.
As someone who hates sounding pretentious, I defend the pronunciation of ahn-deeve. EN-dive just sounds dumb.
From the American side: My husband has been reading my 3-year-old a French book of fruits and vegetables. I refuse since I don't speak French and don't want to just make up pronunciations. It has, however, taken me a while to figure out that when she's yelling fresh, fresh in the grocery store, she wants strawberries. (Her pronunciation is improving--you figure them out, they change what they're doing.) Last night, she told me to buy une pasteque at the grocery store. (Sorry, I don't know how to put the right mark over the e.) I had to make her tell me what exactly that was.
Almost all words sound better when pronounced in French. English is not a pretty language, but it's ours, and we need to accept that. Besides, EN-dive is so bitter that it really doesn't deserve a pretty pronunciation, anyway.
Oddly, the names of several flowers are prettier in English than in French. Two that come to mind are "muguet," a word which sounds too much like "mucus" to mean something as lovely as lily of the valley, and
"chèvrefeuille," which is not only ugly-sounding, but also means "goat leaf," a horrible name for the flower which God clearly intended to be called honeysuckle. On the other hand, "pansy" is just the English mispronunciation of the French "pensée," which means "thought" and is a much more charming name for that flower.
It sounds like S and I will be able to have a wonderful botanical conversation in French when next we meet!
Question:
In American, if "No, thank you" = "I'm good"... would I be wrong to assume that "Thank you" = "I'm not good" ?
Try it and let us know what happens.
William Safire, take note...
To A: It depends on context. When I say "thank you," I don't mean "I'm not good," because that's not true. But sometimes, "thank you" = "you're REALLY good!"
Let me know if you need me to diagram that sentence for you.
Strong the dark side is. I shall join you! Love, Max
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