Words. They’re a peculiar thing in France. I’m sure they’re peculiar in every country, but I haven’t been to every country, so suffice it to say that words are a peculiar thing in France. At the level I am, I only understood about three quarters of what was said to and around me. And this is what I heard.
French people don’t like to waste time and, therefore, don’t like curtailing their conversations simply because their mouths are full of food. Despite my preconceptions about table etiquette, this discovery wasn’t all too shocking. What did shock me was the violent gasp that escaped my host mother’s mouth mid-conversation. Dissonant and out of the blue, I was scared her lung had collapsed, or that she was about to go into some kind of fit. I glanced wildly around the table for some signal of what to do, but found that my alarm was private. She continued speaking as if all was fine, and my host father and sister seemed unperturbed, so I returned to my noodles, shaken and wary. I learned later that all wasfine. After several more incidents from both her and others, I learned that the piercing breath was not an indicator of severe bodily distress, but rather the result of saying, "Oui," while inhaling. A conversational technique used to maintain the natural flow of words, unencumbered by something as frivolous as respiration. It’s unsettling. Try it. I only ever heard it used with "Oui," though I’m sure there are some extremely efficient conversationalists who employ this technique with every breath.
Other strange verbalisms included the expression, “Mentir comme un arracheur de dents,” meaning “to lie like a dentist.” Apart from signifying a deep cultural distrust of teeth care practitioners, this phrase refers to when a dentist tells you that something isn’t going to hurt, and then it hurts a great deal.
Instead of frogs in throats, the French have cats, and to have poor handwriting is to “Ecrire comme un chat” -- to write like a cat. This denotes either a general distaste for felines, or a begrudging reverence. It’s hard to tell with these people.
When referring to the homeless, the French use the acronym, SDF, which stands for “sans domicile fixé,” or “without permanent residence.” I’m not a huge fan of this one. Not only does it refer to a group of people as a formal description, but it reduces them to an acronym. I find this dehumanizing, rather like how my host sister finds our usage of ‘street urchin’ pejorative and depersonalizing. It’s one of those not-so-nice words tossed around without thought, as you’ll find myriad in any country. Though describing this is a hell of a lot easier than trying to explain why the widely accepted name for a man’s tank-top is ‘wife beater’.
One phenomenon I did appreciate was their stance on sneezing. The French often don’t say "bless you" because they are haughty and rude. That was a lie. I’m lying to you. Like a dentist. Actually, it’s quite the opposite. They believe it’s rude to point out someone’s involuntary nostril expulsion, placing it on a similar level to a burp. It’s, therefore, considered polite for the offender to atone for their uncouth transgression with a small, “excusez-moi,” whispered into their tissue. Personally, I was thrilled to have found a culture that embraced something I’ve been saying for years. I generally don’t find people saying "bless you" all that comforting. It’s more of a trained response than a sympathetic gesture. And who do we think we are, blessing people without an ordination? It’s madness. This isn’t to say the French don’t have anyresponse to sneezing, they just reserve it for family and close friends, so it’s a great way to tell if someone actually cares about you. First sneeze is met with, “A tes souhaits,” which means, “to your wishes.” Sneeze number two heralds an, “A tes amours,” or, “to your loves,” and, if two aren’t enough for you, there are several responses applicable to the third sneeze, my favorite being, “A tes merdes.”“To your shits.”
And the baguette. Ah, yes, the pinnacle of French culture. Could it truly be as omnipresent as we have been led to believe? Much like the secret to improv, the answer is yes, andnot only can the lanky loaves be found on every table in every home, slung over the shoulders of students and teachers alike, poking out of backpacks and shared on park benches, but the word can be found everywhere as well -- in the places you’d least expect. What does Harry use to defeat Voldemort? His magic baguette, of course. You wouldn’t dare enter a sushi restaurant and eat a rainbow roll without a pair of baguettes, would you? And a conductor would be laughed off the stage should he wave anything other than his trusty baguette. What else would you stick down the barrel of your musket? Yes, a baguette is -- all at once -- a magic wand, a chopstick, a baton, a metal rod, and, no less important, our everyday friend of cheeses and jams alike, a meter long slab of bready goodness.
In English, we often lambaste people for overusing "like." It's stupid, we say. A sign of laziness, ignorance, and poor discipline. Sure, over-usage is, like, annoying but it has a purpose. It's a verbal placeholder that allows the user to gather their thoughts without losing momentum. The French have this too. They "uh." They "uh" hard. Well, it's really more of an "euh..." “Euhhh, oui, j’étais là, mais euh, non, euhhh". Nearly everyone did this. Teachers in particular, and it does nothing to lessen their image as intellectuals. It's how people speak, the French just don't cover it with a random word. And it feels good. I highly recommend it.
But you have to be careful when speaking French. There are lots of little rules and hang-ups and traps to fall into. I won’t even get started on the poorly gendered can of worms concerning every noun in the language being either masculine or feminine -- like how uterus, ovary, and vagina are all masculine words, or how cats, dogs, and owls are all boys while mice and panthers are all girls -- that’s a rant for another time.
One such particular that should be noted is the comma. La virgule.When it comes to numbers, a donut costing €2,80 is a much better deal than one at €2.800 -- unless, of course, the donut is made of solid gold or holds some weird sentimental value. The point and the comma are switched in numbers, so a period will appear between the thousands and the hundreds row, whereas a comma separates numbers and decimals. This is easy enough to get the hang of, but becomes unpleasant in conversation. Virgule is a mouthful. Teeth meet lips followed by tongue contortions leading into a pop at the back of the palette before flattening the cheeks, rounding the lips, and finishing off with a flick of the tip of the tongue. It’s all very poetic when listing off the acrobatics, but really breaks the flow when listing off numbers. 9.7, for example, would be a lot more rhythmically concise if said, "neuf-point-sept" instead of "neuf-vayregoole-sept." It’s inefficient and I expected better.
French numbers are funky. They seem to work normally, until they don't. Everything up to 10 is fine, and then continues to seem fine up to 17; 11 through 16 each have their own specific word. Onze, douze, treze, etc., but at 17 the numbers all become compounds. They are dix-sept, dix-huit, dix-neuf, or ten-seven, ten-eight, ten-nine. It's a little strange, but nothing to worry about, you may tell yourself as you continue to climb, passing 40 without incident and seeing a clear path ahead. But wait, what's that? What's happening there in the sixties? Why, they're not stopping! Sixty-eight, sixty-nine, sixty-ten, sixty-eleven, sixty-twelve? All the way up to sixty-19. And you're so relieved it's over that you don't even notice eighty. Or should I say, four-twenties. Get it? Because eighty is just twenty, four times? That makes sense; four-twenties-eight, four-twenties-nine; and it's going so well we might as well take it all the way: four-twenties-ten, four-twenties-eleven, continuing like this until four-twenties-ten-nine. Ninety-nine. Mutated, elongated, lost. And then you're at cent. 100. Ready to do it all again. And they make fun of us for not switching to metric.
What I like most is when the Frenchies use English words, but pronounce them as their own. Like gum. The French call gum, "chewing-gum." No, not "chewing-gum," you filthy American. "Schwingum."
"Week-end"is a strange one, considering neither "week" nor "end" are used anywhere in French. And "Laser Game," is my favorite, both to say and to play. I do find it odd that though they retained the usage of English words, they didn’t feel "Laser "Tag" effectively summed up the complexity of the sport. I must say I agree.
Of actual French words, my two favorites are regression and profiter.Regression, like your wife gettin’ it from the bellboy in the elevator, isn’t what looks like. It’s not negative or psychoanalytical. It refers to doing something like when you were a kid. Not in the somber reminiscence of nostalgia, but in a way that is joyful. Doing something that makes you feel like a kid again. Blowing out candles on a birthday cake, playing Frisbee in the backyard, or eating a meal from your childhood. It’s an innocent reconnection to your younger self.
Profiter is another word without an English equivalent. All at once it means to enjoy, to take advantage of, to benefit, and to grow from. Often used as a command, before any vacation my family would tell me “profites bien!” “Get the most you can out of this experience.” It’s great advice, and has become my mantra. To live well and to live fully. To keep your eyes and mind open, and take whatever the world has to offer.
