Date: Wed, 22 May 2002 11:28:54 +0930 From: Greg 'groggy' Lehey <grog@FreeBSD.org> To: Brad Knowles <brad.knowles@skynet.be> Cc: Rahul Siddharthan <rsidd@online.fr>, chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: French, Flemish and English (was: cvs commit: src/sys/alpha/alpha clock.c) Message-ID: <20020522112854.A26107@wantadilla.lemis.com> In-Reply-To: <p05111705b90fe1afee46@[10.0.1.4]> References: <20020517114010.A57127@regency.nsu.ru> <20020519100324.GK44562@daemon.ninth-circle.org> <20020519134348.I67779@blossom.cjclark.org> <p05111722b90de01cc974@[10.9.8.215]> <20020520195703.A79046@dragon.nuxi.com> <p05111701b90fb2744154@[10.9.8.215]> <20020521103710.C71209@lpt.ens.fr> <p05111703b90fc048bd8f@[10.0.1.4]> <20020521133026.L71209@lpt.ens.fr> <p05111705b90fe1afee46@[10.0.1.4]>
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On Tuesday, 21 May 2002 at 13:47:43 +0200, Brad Knowles wrote:
> At 1:30 PM +0200 2002/05/21, Rahul Siddharthan wrote:
>
>> You'll be surprised at the number of foreign words in common use in
>> French. From English, there's "weekend", "stop" (in road signs),
>> "ok", and other examples I can't recall offhand; and among technical
>> terms, "CD" (in French it should have been "DC" but isn't -- with
>> "DVD" there's no problem), internet, web, login, etc. There are also
>> coinages you won't find in English, like "footing" (soccer), "fooding"
>> (roughly, the art of eating) and so on. Admittedly the French often
>> do mutilate foreign words when they import them, but that's the
>> people, not the academie.
>> I've noticed French people who can
>> pronounce "Hubbard" quite nicely when speaking English, will say
>> something like "oobaarh" when speaking French.
>
> That's because the pronunciation of the same word is different in
> the two languages.
That presupposes that pronunciation of words is a function of the
language spoken. For words which don't belong to the language, this
doesn't make any sense.
> My wife and I have kept our names, because both of us are
> professionals and we have certain affiliations and reputations that
> we've built up over the years with those names. In the US, it didn't
> matter so much whether we used her name ("Geyer") or mine, because
> most people could pronounce and spell them roughly equally well.
> Moreover, they could deal with the concept of two people being
> married and living at the same address, but not having the same last
> name.
>
> However, over here, we tend to use her name a lot more. Instead
> of saying the proper "Guy-ur", they say something more like
> "Zhie-air", but it's close enough. But the way they mangle "Knowles"
> is just unbelievable. They can't spell it, either. In addition,
> unless you want to go into a thirty minute expose as to how two
> people could be married, living together, and yet not have the same
> last name, you just don't really bother even trying to correct them
> when they call you "Monsieur Zhie-air", even though she complains
> every time that you respond positively to this usage that you are not
> her father, and therefore you do not have the right to use that name
> that way.
I find this surprising. This must be something to do with the French
Belgians. In France, women don't get the name of their husband. Yes,
they're allowed to use it, and almost invariably do, but you'll notice
the difference between "Helen Smith née Jones" and "Yvonne Belmont
épouse Dupont". My wife is French, and we got married in Germany,
where they have a book of rules. Their book of rules stated that my
wife was not allowed to take my name, and no proof we could give them
would convince them of the contrary. After something like 11 years of
marriage they finally found a solution, but by that time we were
leaving anyway.
> French-speaking people are so damn snooty sometimes.
> Occasionally you will run into one that doesn't speak English but
> will still be friendly and as helpful as possible, but if you don't
> speak French it seems that most often you will run into people who
> take a "But you must speak French in order to exist!" type attitude.
Again, this is possibly more the case in Bruxelles than in France.
The worst thing you can do is speak Flemish to them. In France, I've
frequently spoken to people in French and been answered in English.
Greg
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