Quel bonheur de lire tes "petits essais" sur les multiples expressions françaises...quelqu'en soit le thême, je prends toujours un plaisir infini à savourer tes illustrations...tu décortiques les mots avec beaucoup d'humour...
Keep it up Julia ! Olivier.
You're my ideal reader! What a treat to have someone respond with puns. I guess a kiss is a definite "amuse bouche". We played word games in English at home when I was a kid, but I don't recall grammar challenges, even though my father's fiercest criticism was "You just used like as a conjunction!" I'll have to see what I can find out about word games in French salons. Somebody must know. I don't even know how common group wordplay still is in the US. Do people still play "fictionary"?
Hello Julia,
Was just invited to join New York in French recently, and it's been great fun discovering your "amuse-bouche" I particularly enjoyed the previous one, re an "intello's" pastimes - I agreed with many of your observations and in fact, had noted that while my US-born kids and their peers would have definitely considered it decidedly "un-cool" to discuss finer points of grammar (even during their years at top universities in the country), their counterparts in France considered it normal, as I had while growing up in France. "Je te pose une colle" was an automatic challenge to everyone and usually stimulated a good discussion - I didn't notice the one-upmanship involved, as it generally felt like a group effort, but I suspect you could see that more clearly as an observer. I also wondered whether the custom has its roots in the salons of earlier centuries, any thoughts on that? As for love, one could go on and on.... Or is it possible that, regarding passion as well as French attitudes towards passion, the expression "aimer a la folie" says it all.... so have we now brought the 2 "amuse-bouche" together? Fun to think about, anyway! Carol
Merci Nathalie, Camille (et Amandine, sur le groupe "Advisory Board") for your comments and kind words. Pity there's no American novel with the impact on young women of Belle du Seigneur.
My biggest struggle as I do these, is to keep the blog accurate! This always takes sending each new article in brouillon to des informateurs autochtones whose job it is to keep me from making gaffes. If anyone is interested in helping me out with this, or has any suggestions for future articles, please contact me by commenting here.
Comments
Quel bonheur de lire tes "petits essais" sur les multiples expressions françaises...quelqu'en soit le thême, je prends toujours un plaisir infini à savourer tes illustrations...tu décortiques les mots avec beaucoup d'humour...
Keep it up Julia ! Olivier.
You're my ideal reader! What a treat to have someone respond with puns. I guess a kiss is a definite "amuse bouche". We played word games in English at home when I was a kid, but I don't recall grammar challenges, even though my father's fiercest criticism was "You just used like as a conjunction!" I'll have to see what I can find out about word games in French salons. Somebody must know. I don't even know how common group wordplay still is in the US. Do people still play "fictionary"?
Was just invited to join New York in French recently, and it's been great fun discovering your "amuse-bouche" I particularly enjoyed the previous one, re an "intello's" pastimes - I agreed with many of your observations and in fact, had noted that while my US-born kids and their peers would have definitely considered it decidedly "un-cool" to discuss finer points of grammar (even during their years at top universities in the country), their counterparts in France considered it normal, as I had while growing up in France. "Je te pose une colle" was an automatic challenge to everyone and usually stimulated a good discussion - I didn't notice the one-upmanship involved, as it generally felt like a group effort, but I suspect you could see that more clearly as an observer. I also wondered whether the custom has its roots in the salons of earlier centuries, any thoughts on that? As for love, one could go on and on.... Or is it possible that, regarding passion as well as French attitudes towards passion, the expression "aimer a la folie" says it all.... so have we now brought the 2 "amuse-bouche" together? Fun to think about, anyway! Carol
My biggest struggle as I do these, is to keep the blog accurate! This always takes sending each new article in brouillon to des informateurs autochtones whose job it is to keep me from making gaffes. If anyone is interested in helping me out with this, or has any suggestions for future articles, please contact me by commenting here.