Category: Reading

Too much! In French, “C’est trop!”

What more can you express with just this short exclamation?! This is one we hear everyday all around the world because it’s so true every day! I can’t believe it!

How much? Too much!

How far? Too far!

Are you kidding me?  C’est trop beau. Beyond expectations. Beyond what I ever imagined.

How beautiful? Too beautiful for words.

“Let’s go to  …”

Too expensive … too far … too new … too old … too cold … too fast … too slow … too good …

What’s the difference between the French and Americans?

The conservative French often say “C’est trop …tard…”  And daring Americans … “It’s never too ….late.”

And can’t we all say to someone: “Nothing’s too good for you.”

Of course, some days, on either side of the pond … it really is “Too Darn Hot.”

And that’s just what Ella Fitzgerald is singing on today’s Paris Savannah Connection.

Enjoy it!

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Je me suis aperçu, ensuite, que dans sa vulnérabilité, l’étranger ne pouvait tabler que sur l’hospitalité dont ferait preuve, à son égard, autrui.

Tout comme les mots bénéficient de l’hospitalité de la page blanche et l’oiseau, de celle, inconditionnelle, du ciel.

Et c’est l’objet de ce livre.

Mais qu’est-ce que l’hospitalité?

Edmund Jabès.

Le Livre de l’Hospitalité éditions Gallimard, 1991

I later realized that, in his vulnerability, the foreigner could only rely on the hospitality that others would care to show him.

Like words that profit from the hospitality of the blank page, and the bird,  from the unconditional (hospitality) of the sky.

And that is the reason for this book.

But what is hospitality?

(translation Mark Levinson)

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A panda walks into a café. He orders a sandwich, eats it, then draws a gun and proceeds to fire it at the other patrons.’Why?’ asks the confused, surviving waiter amidst the carnage, as the panda makes towards the exit. The panda produces a badly punctuated wildlife manual and tosses it over his shoulder.

‘Well, I’m a panda,’ he says, at the door. ‘Look it up.’

The waiter turns to the relevant entry in the dictionary and, sure enough, finds an explanation. ‘Panda. Large black-and-white bear-like mammal, native to China. Eats, shoots, and leaves.’

By Lynne Truss. Masterpiece. The best there is on punctuation.

Order your copy now right here! 

Amazon – Abe – Momox or buy one at your favorite bookseller’s!! 

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George Bernard Shaw, the playwright who wrote Pygmalion – the basis for “My Fair Lady” – made this often quoted statement:

England and America are two countries separated by a common language.

While the traditional grammars are very similar and pronunciations very different, there are lots of everyday vocabulary differences between the two. For the foreigner learning “English,” this can be … amusing.

Because the car is omnipresent, automobile and the vocabulary of transportation is one of the themes where differences show up every day.

Americans say trunk … the British say … boot

In North America, the windshield; in the UK, the windscreeen

Trucks use the highways and interstates …  across the states … while lorries travel motorways …

For more, here’s a link you ought to appreciate:

Of Loos and Language. By Roger Cohen.

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The “Greening of America: An Opportunity for Europe” conference held on Monday, April 12th was hosted by Microsoft at their new Parisian Campus in Issy les Moulineaux. Discussion centered around one major theme: Public and Private Partnerships, local and trans-Atlantic.

US policy is to export know-how and to welcome job creating innovative green projects.

I think French policy is about the same. So … maybe there’s some business to be done.

Most of the conference was in English and I was struck by the vivacity of the language used. I’d say I could understand upwards of 90% of the speeches.  There were a few accents and some unusal pronunciations my ear had to get used to. But they were all informative, rich and intelligent.

Here are a few of the most frequently used terms:

green, sustainable and sustainability, partnerships, cloud (as in cloud computing);

There were lots of comparatives used and especially this one: cleaner. More efficient came out frequently as did the word “new” often as an adjective with both a prefix (re-) and a suffix (able):  renewable.

These conferences are always good for scrabble players : renewability was used about every 15 minutes .

The prefix re- and the sound re- was heard in these words: reward … re-energize.. and recovery….  and responsible.

Innovation was a key word as was the subject: energy. And of course: energy efficient…which is, I learnt,  what the Empire State Building will soon be!

Self-funding is a neat concept. I don’t recall if that came from a “public” or a “private” institution. Of course, investment was used over and over again but I have no recall of the word ‘cost’ … except in the phrase “low-cost.”

“Paperless” “Paper-free” : Someone in the audience translated these as “sans-papiers.”

More than one speaker used a very clear and easy to pronounce expression:

“At the end of the day …” This expression,  which means … the end result …. is roughly synonomous with

“When all is said and done” or “The bottom line”

and in French … maybe something like … Tous comptes faits … En fin de compte … and I will say that today, at the end of the day, there was a lot of goodwill, lots of business cards exchanged and promises made!

I couldn’t help but note that one other word, a word which immigrated into American English from Europe,  was used: Chutzpah!

Bravo to all the participants and thanks to the hosts and sponsors. This is a step in the right direction.

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Where do more people speak more languages than anywhere else ?

New York City!

Here’s where English is the most common language but far from the only language … Enjoy this wonderful documentary about very alive and disappearing languages … all spoken in New York.

I’m sure that there must also be hundreds of languages spoken in Paris. Can anybody help with more information on this???

Thanks to the New York Times.  It speaks of the dangers of languages becoming extinct.  The other danger is for us  … realizing how little we know about our world.

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It’s simply a score!  … A tennis score, silly !

The French, who have a reputation, deservedly or not, in these matters: love or tennis, you choose … just do it … and (whisper?) talk about it.

They say, a little upset for one and self-satisfied for the other,  “Zéro-quinze” and then after the next ball is served, it can be “quinze-quinze” or “Zéro-trente” … followed by “Zéro-quarante” and if the non-serving player scores the next point it’s …

“Jeu.” Game over. No Love. Just a game. On to the next one … A set. Two sets. Match point. Match.

Anglo-Saxons, on the other hand, tend to be much more emotional. We start with “Love” and then the 15s and the thirties and the forties until … someone gallantly says …

“You won!” And then? Well, the next game begins with … “Love”, doesn’t it ? Two winners.

Of course, the British started by playing on … green grass. Lawn tennis. Like love, a little unpredictable as to where the ball bounces.

Fate? Destiny? as in Woody Allen’s masterpiece “Match Point.”

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As the prices indicated are in USD, I think this must only apply to American women living within driving distance of a mall … I was about to say that French women have other preoccupations … until I thought about how many pairs of shoes my daughters have … and the rue St. Placide …

A word to the wise:  Note the pronunciation of “women.” The plural of woman. Listen:  

[audio:http://test.paris-savannah.com/wp-content/uploads/MF81991.mp3|titles=women]

NB. Why do malls work? Precisely because … women are known to go to the major department stores to compare … Malls are designed so that there are competing department stores at opposite ends or multi-polar points  … so the shoppers MUST walk in front of all the other shops as they go back and forth from one to the other … Those mall planners are pretty tricky folk.

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It seems that some people “talk …talk … talk …” but when it comes to “doing … doing … doing … ” they can be hard to find!

There are several expressions dealing with these situations. One common one is:

Talk is cheap.

meaning … this is easy because it doesn’t cost anything except your time …

This same notion is used when calling someone’s bluff:

Put your money … where your mouth is.

Yes, it’s direct .. it’s straight to the point. No kid gloves in this one.

But it does mean what it says… If you mean what you say, risk your hard-earned money to prove it.

As much as I can stand by different just and fair causes, I often think that if every protester were asked to open their wallets and volontarily contribute to the cause according to their means … there might be … fewer protesters:

“Putting your money where your mouth is”  describes this.

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