Flirting with French

I am reading an eBook (borrowed from Carnegie Library through OverDrive) called “Flirting with French” (by William Alexander).  Earlier this year I wrote a post of “Bill Gates is trying to take up French, so am I”.

I first downloaded a “sample”; I was sold when I read the following paragraph.

A rainy afternoon with my wife at a Left Bank brasserie, watching the city scurry home, the drizzly streets an impressionist canvas come to life.  Anne and I drunk on cold beer, on Paris, on love, happy as happy gets, neither of us speaking much, just enjoying the scene, and realizing how lucky we are to love the same things, and Paris, and each other.

This is not really a learning French book, but the author (an American) talks about French while touring France with his wife.  The following paragraph gives you a feel of it.  The blue/italicized words are French.

. . . even before tackling French I already knew a number of French words, in addition to petit and problème. How much of our vocabulary is shared with French?  To get an idea, take a stroll through an English garden (jardin), where you may find a fleur in bloom, perhaps an insecte perchè atop a rose, enjoying the soft petales.  Attention! Some of these plantes might be dangereuses, while others are quite     dèlicieuses. A quarter to a third of all English words come from French.

Bill Gates is trying to take up French, so am I.

Like Bill Gates, I felt “pretty stupid” because I cannot speak any language other than English (I am probably “less stupid” than he as I at least can speak Chinese/Taiwanese).   He said, “I took Latin and Greek in high school and I guess it helps my vocabulary but I wish I knew French or Arabic or Chinese.”  He is hoping to get time to study French (easier than Arabic or Chinese) and he envied that Mark Zuckerberg was able to do a Q&A in Mandarin with Chinese students; “incredible” he wrote.

café-au-lait (from UpToDate)

I’ll just try to learn French words in English for now.

George Orwell wrote that the term “cul de sac” is pretentious and unnecessary.  If he were a doctor he wouldn’t say that; one cannot escape “cul de sac” reading medicine.  Every student of medicine (in English) knows the pouch between the uterus and rectum is called Pouch of Douglas or better known as “cul de sac” (a dead end).  A procedure to aspirate the potential fluid here is called culdocentesis.

Seeing café-au-lait macule (brown flat spots), a doctor thinks about neurofibromatosis.

The sound of “Torsades de pointes” makes a doctor tremble; as it is a very serious cardiac arrhythmia that is caused by QT interval prolongation (medicine is not a topic of interest here).

An avant-garde composer is one who is innovative, non-traditional, creative and experimental or pioneering; the term seems to be reserved for use in art only, not in science.

Belle Époque is a period in European social history that began during the late 19th century and lasted until World War I.  I guess the American South would say their Belle Époque ended at the Civil War.  Belle is a beautiful woman or girl.

The architect was given carte blanche to build, landscape and furnish the house.  This means the architect was given all authority he needs to do whatever he sees it fit.    carte blanche ("white card" or blank check; unlimited authority)

A tête-à-tête home dinner is a private and intimate dinner between two persons.  tête-à-tête ("head to head"; an intimate get-together or private conversation between two people).

George Eliot uses tête-à-tête in Middlemarch on many occasions:

". . .and Mr. Ned Plymdale (one of the good matches in Middlemarch, though not one of the leading minds) was in tête-à-tête with Rosamond."

"Indeed, this tête-à-tête was one of Rosamond's objects in coming to Stone Court."

"he seemed to be making himself eminently agreeable to Rosamond, whom he had easily monopolized in a tête-à-tête , since Mrs. Vincy [Rosamond's mother] herself sat at the tea-table"

haute couture ("high sewing": trend-setting high fashion)

laissez-faire (“let do”; meaning leaving alone, or non-interference; often is used in economic state) The reaction against free trade and laissez-faire.  The people hold that laissez-faire could solve the economic problem of the British community.

hors d'œuvre (appetizer); bon appétit ("good appetite"; enjoy your meal)

Churchill felt the French city/port Le Havre should be just Havre; the “Le” should be dropped in English version.