Conference thebay::joyoflex

    And the classic repartee :
    
    "Je t'adore"  "Shut it yourself !"

	If memory serves:
	Pied e terre :== the plumbing's out of order.

    _Fractured French_ was a book published in the early 1950s and
    illustrated by the cartoonist Peter Arno.
    
    Among those I recall:
    
    Mise en Seine = there are mice in the river
    Lese majeste = what Madam Pompadour did to Louis XV
    
    There were others.
    
    Steve Kallis, Jr.                  
    
    P.S.: Arno was also involved with an equivalent book using Latin
    phrases. [e.g., in hoc = pawned it]     

    Is it true that the French refer to the cedilla as "l'accent
    sous-marin" because it goes under the "c"?
    
    Phillip

    Arno's book caused quite a stir in my high school French class.
    The teacher, for whom English was a third language, didn't get it!
    
    My favorite:  "Hors de combat" == Camp followers

    Entente cordiale:
    
    Equal parts of Roses Lime Juice and Gordon's.  No alternatives.
    No ice.

    bas-relief:  what a lonely Kiwi finds?

    The British One-pound coin comes with an inscription round the edge,
    either in Welsh:
    
    IM GWYLAD PLEIDIOL WYF
    (I'm Gladys, here's my wife)
    
    - or in Latin:
    
    DECUS ET TUTAMEN
    (Tutenkhamun was a DECUS member)
    
    C'est la vie, c'est la guerre, c'est la pomme de terre

    Je ne sais pas == Young Jennifer has learned to call for her father

    == on the wagon

    
    omelette du fromage  -  what hamlet are you from?
    

    My aunt's much better since she visited the lady's room.
    
    -bs

    Look out for low-flying fruit
    
    Andy

		    Beverly Hills Cop II
                
    
    					andrew

    It has been announced that the French subsidiary of Apple Computer
    will merge with Teradyne. The new company will, of course, be called
                 Pomme de Teradyne
    

    How would you describe a student who had spent a long day on horseback?
                          

    Sorbonne.
    
    And what would you say to such a student?
    

    C'est pour rire.

    Cuir de Russie = Russian pederast
    
    
    Peter

    escargot == a boatload of s's.
    
    beaux arts = Bo's collection of paintings

    ... and then there's
    
    sabotage == how old is that dinghy?
    
    Steve Kallis, jr.
    

    One of the soda flavors that Snapple puts out is called "Creme d' Vanilla."

    I got a chuckle out of that.

    - Jim

    How about the American item of furniture called a "chaise lounge" ?
    
    Really.
    

    That ain't as bad as a lesser (should I say greater?) variant which is
    oft-seen, "chaise long."  One wonders why "chaise" survives but its
    modifier is doomed to the Procrustean rack. :-)
    

    Some of the fractured French words or phrases are from Norman
    French (e.g. chair/chaise, butt/but) and thus are not anglified
    Modern French but anglified medieval dialectial French.
    
    Even in modern French there have been big changes.  My old
    historical linguistics book mentioned that the old standard
    Parisian pronunciation of "moi", "roi" and other words spelled 
    with "oi" was /mwe/, /rwe/ and so on.  The change took place
    during the Revolution, when people started using a local
    dialectial pronunciation rather than the King's French.
    
    		-John Bishop

	How about that beef dish that gets served "with au jus" ?

	Or the phrase "a la" followed by "the" ?

>You mean "rosbif au jus"?

No, I mean the American version - "roast beef with au jus" !

Or how about the following version often seen around Ottawa ...

Roast beef with au jus sauce


One of my favourites was on the cafteria menu today ...

	Chicken a la king
	Poulet a la king

both offend ...

	Surely it should be

	Poulet au roi  ... or ...
	Poulet a la reine  ... or even  ...
	Poulet royale

    How about some Idiotic Italian:

    Shrimp Scampi

    - Jim

Reminds me of the Italian company that imported folding bikes into
Britain and called them "Decomposable bicycles" !

    Jello du jour
    

Boy the Academie Francaise is rolling over in it's grave.

By the way that's pronounce Academy Fran-cayz-ee

>Boy the Academie Francaise is rolling over in it's grave.

Not to mention the Apostles of the Apostrophe ...

It's amazing how I do that dang its/it's thing...

>    Jello du jour

Is that pronounced "zhello du zhour" or "jello du jour?"    

    WHAT "Cafeteria in Cambridge?"  Like, the "Bick" was torn down DECADES
    ago.  (& many an happy bullsession did I have there, amidst fairly good
    AmeriCoffee...)  Are there any left (discounting, of course, the
    several University & Institute cafeterias -- which now that you mention
    it might well have been capable of the linguistic calumny you cited)?
    

    This may be as good a place as any to put this:
    
    During the ubiquitous coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian peace deal,
    one BBC World Service (no less!) newscaster mentioned how the Americans
    were presented with this 'fait accompli'. Now, his pronounciation
    missed the mark slightly as it came out 'faith accompli'. 
    
    Or maybe that *was* the word he used ...
                                                        
                                                  - Rik -
    

    Cafeteria on Mass Av just up the street from the Holiday Inn on the 
    Lexington side of Harvard Square.