lingerie

I wouldn't worry Mollie. It isn't a word I have heard used here, my neighbours tend to talk about sous-vêtements when we discuss such things. Not that we do often, I have to say, but I was making them gasp the other day at the fact that we had to wear brown knickers with our school uniform.

Yes, absent,egzackly.

Unmentionables... nether garments... why 'trolleys', which I have heard somewhere?

There is a very long tradition of mispronouncing French words in UK - as the Saxons just couldn't get it right! So much so that many English words are now imbedded in the English language and barely resemble the original lol. Like 'beef' for 'boeuf', or 'plumber' for 'plombier' or even 'mushroom' for 'mousseron', and so many more. 'Cul-de-sac as kept the original spelling, but any French would find it difficult to recognise the English version.

My French students always laugh at the word 'genrE', or 'ménage à trois'. One mistake that does grate (a bit) is the common mixup between 'ménage' (a household/family) and manège (for horses, or a merry go round).

And it goes both ways - I always have to explain to my French and Swiss students that a 'sweatshirt' just cannot be a 'sweet' (which is how the French say it) for obvious reasons.

All good fun and confusion.

It doesn't help if, like me, you can't roll your rrrrrrrrs!

Worse the other way, I think granjura. The French words in English are pretty static, but the number of English words in French seem to grow by the day!

I like 'Cul-de-sac' - literally 'arse of a bag', and like 'double entendre' not heard from French speakers.

As for rolling your 'r's - Spanish is the tongue for that - take words like 'pero' (but) and 'perro' (dog) - the difference is in how long the 'r' is rolled...

My husband and I were in Paris recently at a play reading in an Irish pub of all places. We were very amused that in the (French) introduction to it there was an apology for the event being "tres low-tech" as the waiters from upstairs had to cross the stage to the kitchen intermittently. We heard several Anglicized words in general conversation over le weekend!

Today I saw, "le low-cost dans les frais funéraires".....

Sacre bleu! Quelle est la prochaine?

Wasn't it President Bush who remarked that the French have no word for entrepreneur??

Yes and if you have tried to run a small business here you will know that he was right!

Another thing I have noticed is that the French are adopting the greengrocer's apostrophe for English words. I have seen Bit's and Bob's, hairdresser's, fresh fruit's etc. interesting linguistically how that has come to pass.....

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Reported

Interesting contribution to Pedants' corner!

We could do an interesting deconstruction of the text, as it is in the pedants' section.

Should manufacture have "The" before it?
Is manufacture really meant to be the subject of the verb "is"?
How can a manufacture be a power?
What is a black and white season?
Surely the 2013 spring and summer seasons are over?
What is a T station? Are they subject to floods?
Do stripes move in flocks?
Should it be "our retinas" not "our retina"?
A flock of anything to a retina must be very painful to the eyeball.
What is a sleeve joint? Is it a concealed roll-up?
"Luo" = "A member of an East African people of Kenya and the upper Nile valley." Are they famed as beautiful urban women?

Apparently in Australia "thongs" are flipflops.

Note to GNHQ - remove the link, but leave the rest of the post as an example as "English as she is not spoke"

"Apparently in Australia "thongs" are flipflops." S'right - thongs and stubbies (shorts) - or, alternatively, budgie smugglers...

Our Australian friends told us that they all wear thongs at their Lions Club events. They thought the French Lions were very formal.......

TMI

I thought stubbies were cans of beer! Never heard of shorts called stubbies

Thread reminds me - must cancel the online French course I signed up for when I got back from hol. Enthusiasm worn off.