Anybody speak French?

[Alpo]

In English, when you are referring to somebody by his surname you call him Mister Jones. When you are writing it you use the abbreviation Mr, but if you read it aloud you still say mister.

 

In French, when you are referring to someone by his surname you call him Monsieur d'Artagnan. When you are writing it you use the abbreviation M. If you were reading that name aloud, would you say "M d'Artagnan", or would you say "Monsieur d'Artagnan"?

 

Logic says that you would say Monsieur, but logic has let me down before when working with foreign languages.

[Cold Lake Kid, SASS # 51474]

Monsieur is the proper way to prefix a man's name.

Madame for a married woman.

Mademoiselle (or the diminutive Mamselle) for an unmarried woman.

 

[Buckshot Bear]

I can count to three in French. 

 

It's pretty cool being bilingual 

[Dapper Dave]

Only French I know is not suitable for polite company...or so I'm told. 

[Wallaby Jack, SASS #44062]

2 hours ago, Buckshot Bear said:

I can count to three in French. 

 

It's pretty cool being bilingual 

 

 

    .......... well, ..... you know more than I do ..... <blush>

[PaleWolf Brunelle, #2495L]

Entering the abbreviation into multiple online translators (e.g., Google or Bing) yields the same results.

Hit the speaker icon for proper pronunciation.

 

[Pat Riot]

Anybody speak French?

Every once in a while I will yell “Wee!”

 

I believe that’s “Yes” in French.

 

Fun Fact: The three little pigs were French. They loved home so much they exclaimed “Yes, yes, yes” all the way home. 
 

 

[Alpo]

1 hour ago, Pat Riot said:

I believe that’s “Yes” in French

Back in the '80s I sold magazines for a living. Put them in the stores. So when I would come in with my box of magazines somebody had to read off the list and I would count them to verify that they were actually getting what they were going to be charged for.

 

There were many "adult" magazines back then. Several of them had French names. There was one called Chic (pronounced sheek). There was another one named Oui (we).

 

One of my customers insisted on calling those two magazines Chick, and Owe You One (O U 1).

[H. K. Uriah, SASS #74619]

I think people in France speak French.   I also believe some Canadians speak a version of it.

[Alpo]

1 hour ago, Alpo said:

Several of them had French names

I just remembered another one. Cheri ("sweetheart" or "honey" or "dear"). That's pronounced Sherr-EE!, with the accent on the i.

 

You know Playboy's logo is a bunny? These people's was a cherry.

 

(Had to do some serious cropping on that magazine cover)

 

I always called it Sherr-EE, but I used to wonder if it was really supposed to be pronounced cherry?

[Blackwater 53393]

Most of what little French I know is Cajun French and is NOT repeatable in polite company! 🙄😜

[Subdeacon Joe]

1 hour ago, H. K. Uriah, SASS #74619 said:

I think people in France speak French.   I also believe some Canadians speak a version of it.

 

Also the Acadians in Loozeeanna.

[H. K. Uriah, SASS #74619]

For many years, I remember hearing about the Three Musketeers, Athos, Porthos, Aramis and Dartanian.  I always wondered why they were called the THREE Musketeers when there were four of them.  (Like many my age, my introduction to the characters was the cartoons about them on The Banana Splits Show.)

Oddly, I never once ever read a word about Dartanian, and assumed he was made up for the cartoon.

 

I did occasionally see something written about someone named d'Artagnan, which I assumed was pronounced something like, Dee-Arg-uh-tan, I had no idea who he was.

It wasn't until the advent of the Internet that I learned the truth of it all.

Along similar lines I can remember using the exclamation "wahlah!" quite a bit, and so did many of my friends.  But I never saw the word in print, which I found weird.  I do remember occasionally seeing something in print where someone would exclaim "Voila!" which I misread as "Viola" and wondered why they were referencing a stringed instrument at such times.   Made no sense to me whatsoever.

Then I remember seeing a documentary on on the life of Louis the 15th on the History Channel, and for some reason the closed captioning was on.  At one point, the narrator was talking about something about Louis, and he said something like, "And suddenly, wahlah, all was well."  Except the closed captions read voila, and my reaction was, "That's how you spell "wahlah?"   Again it made no sense.

Not too long after that, I was watching a certain Pepe Le Pew cartoon, where he pulls the leash off of Penelope and proclaims, "Viola!  I remove from you the bonds of slavery!"  And yes, he said viola.  But that was when it all clicked for me and I realized that wahlah was really voila and that it was apparently a French word, which accounted for the weird way it was spelled.

Who says cartoons are not educational?

But don't get me started on how Duquesne BLVD in Pittsburgh is pronounced "Doo-kane" and not "Do-kez-nee."

Edited July 22 by H. K. Uriah, SASS #74619

[Finagler 6853 Life]

Had and Aunt named Viola.  She was a hoot!

[Alpo]

3 hours ago, H. K. Uriah, SASS #74619 said:

Along similar lines I can remember using the exclamation "wahlah!" quite a bit, and so did many of my friends

A Dennis the Menace cartoon.

 

Alice had gone off somewhere, so Henry had to cook. And he used about three frames, cutting up stuff and stirring it in the pan and working so hard over the stove.

 

When he finished he put some on a plate and plops it down in front of Dennis - "VOILA!"

 

Dennis takes a bite and says, "Wallah? Tastes like hash to me."

[Brazos Bottom Bill Miller]

...and we all learned about Opera from Bugs Bunny.

[MizPete]

On 7/22/2025 at 10:46 AM, Blackwater 53393 said:

Cajun French and is NOT repeatable in polite company! 🙄😜

Jhoostahn Wilson did NOT teach me any inappropriate Cajun French.

[Trailrider #896]

Non!

[Alpo]

1 minute ago, MizPete said:

Jhoostahn Wilson did NOT teach me any inappropriate Cajun French.

Gotta twice-barreled cara-bean, and my Daddy got a aromatic shootgun ( dat's a gun what fires t'ree times when da warden's around, an' five times when he ain't).