In the Net of Grans

The French I know seem to think they are a pure breed, but if you look at the fragmentation of the country in the Middle Ages into several small kingdoms it seems they are just as much mongrels as the Brits. And of course the Basques, Catalans and Corsicans still do not regard themselves as French.

mamie

Interestingly among our Norman neighbours there are still some folk with red hair and beards (the chaps that is...).

Well, there were some French in the Norman army....

Yes, I keep trying to explain that we are not just Anglo-Saxon any more, but you still hear it all the time - Anglo-Saxon media, banks, attitudes, morality... Seems bizarre to me..

And they were Northmen!

Greatnan That was Normans not the French.

I am surprised the French still regard us as Anglo-Saxons, given what happened in 1066!

Funny really when Europeans keep referring to us as "Anglo-Saxons". You would think we would need to keep up with our chronicles, especially in the Anglo-Saxon media...

Ariadne In my day Old English, including the first half of Beowulf, was compulsory, as were the Scottish Chaucerians. Neither features in a London University BA now.

Well I think that chez moi or chez nous or whatever would be the phrase used. However, I have read (Bill Bryson?) that there is no distinction between house / home or mind / brain in French.
I think my GD was translating "en la casa de mamá y papá".

There is no word for 'home' in French , or at least I have not been able to find one. My google translation site just gives 'maison'. Funny that, when the French are so home-oriented.

I think (and please correct me if I am wrong French speakers) that "chez Maman" would imply in Mummy's house, which might or might not be my house. Chez moi, even if I wasn't there at the time, would be more likely, I think. My grandaughter was translating in her head from Spanish, though. I found it interesting, because the conventional wisdom is that bilingual children speak one language or the other without translation, but she was clearly thinking in Spanish - but then it was her first visit to England.

bags don't you 'run mrssages' have an 'ashet' and a 'gigot'of lamb?

I would say, "la poupee est chez Maman". Is that incorrect?

Ariadne.......'Cette sauce de haute qualite.....' I bet you have read that frequently! I now carry a small book of sudoku in my handbag so I am never without something to amuse me if I have to wait somewhere.

Love all this!

Modal verbs. Is that not a cover all?

Bags Beowulf?

Loved Anglo Saxon but it clashed in Y2 with Greek Drama, which fitted better with Eng. Lit.

This the woman who will read almost anything, if pushed!

gracesmum.

Now, some work is needing done around here. (Scottish usage)

When a pedant gets upset I just say "Their, they're, there"

Or is it nearer to what in greatnan's post was called the general certainty?

Is that usage subjunctive as well?

Thanks, absent, but you could also say "he might have killed himself" about a person who is dead and is suspected of having committed suicide, but the facts of the killing/dying process are not known even though the fact of the deadness is. The meaning and connotations are different but the verb 'might have' is the same.

Be that as it may!
Wish I could use it instinctively in French - I do after il faut que, but struggle with remembering the rest.

Bags Oh yes we do. May and might again.

He may have killed himself i.e. the dead man might have committed suicide.
He might have killed himself i.e. he narrowly avoided death.