Lessons in anglais

One of the great benefits of the assistantship is meeting fellow francophiles from around the world who have chosen to inflict their mother tongue on French children. This has led to some curious cultural comparisons and diverse discoveries...

Lessons learnt

- In Trinidad, it is too hot to ever need to use a duvet, hence confusion all round when our friend from said country was faced with fitting a duvet cover for the first time.

This lead to the dicovery of...

- Words and phrases that don't exist in America:

Duvet day - this is a matter of quite some urgency and must be rectified as soon as possible. Duvet day missionaries shall be sent to spread the word about these most necessary of days.

Grotty

Dalek - although this shouldn't really exist in English either. (Interpret that as you will...)

Full stop - I still don't think our American friend believes that we actually use this apparently hilarious phrase.


- Fun new words learnt in French:

Cocooner - to stay in at home. Awwww.

Baguette magique - magic wand! Guaranteed to conjure amusing images of a wrinkled little wizard brandishing his stick of bread.

Aller dans le sens des aiguilles d'un montre - clockwise. Talk about the long way round!


- We had a clearout of the house fridge last week. With a regular turnover of occupants, there's quite a high rate of abandoned nosh. Nobody knows its owner has long since departed, merrily oblivious to the mould and stench left behind. As we were retrieving various entrails, strings of brown slime and furry fruit, our Dutch housemate commented that the English have an astonishing variety of words for 'disgusting'. I recoiled a moment, unsure whether to take this as an insult to our people or a compliment to our literary range. The temptation proved too much and we discovered the following lists to the envy of Eskimos and their many words for snow:

Disgusting
Minging
Foul
Rank
Mank
Awful
Grotesque
Dire

Good
Excellent
Brilliant
Super
Fantastic
Wonderful
Spigging
Awesome
Wicked
Good
Cracking
Phat

It's raining
Spitting
Drizzling
Pouring
Chucking it down
Pissing it down
Raining cats and dogs
Damp

Disclaimer: Some of these phrases are not 'phat'. Some are actually quite foul. But it was pissing it down and we were bored, so voila: nos efforts.