Women in Stitches: laughing with the Tapestry makers

#tapisseriedebayeux

What is the man at the bottom doing?

Women in Stitches = Les femmes en points (lit.) = Les femmes rirant aux larmes (idiom.) 

Une émission sur BBC Radio 4 (une chaîne similaire à France Culture) sur les femmes anglo-saxonnes qui ont très probablement réalisé la Tapisserie de Bayeux. Il n'y avait tout simplement pas d'autres couturières qualifiées à l'époque pour entreprendre un projet aussi énorme. 

Des auteurs, des femmes bien sûr, tentent d'imaginer ce que les femmes racontaient en cousant les scènes héroïques de la conquête normande de l'Angleterre. Imaginez et essayez de découvrir la moquerie cachée des hommes virils sur les tapisserie? 

Elles pensent que les moustaches tombantes des chevaliers normands ont été intentionnellement exagérées. Et! elles ont compté 91 pénis dans la tapisserie - essayez de vérifier, la prochaine fois que vous la voyez ! 

Très amusant à écouter, mais solidement basé sur la science (hehe)

(quote from the programme site)

The Bayeux Tapestry is coming to Britain in the near future. It’s among the world’s most famous works of art, but it's also a mystery: no one knows who made it. (...)

The main panels were probably designed by an Important Man (hence the focus on battles, on big sexy horses – surely the BMWs of their day – and political propaganda). But the margins of the tapestry may have been left to the imagination of the stitchers themselves: probably English women. This 'freehand' marginalia tell a different story, sometimes undercutting the message of the Norman conquerors in surprising ways. We can imagine the camaraderie and humour of the women sewing it, talking, about their personal tragedies, the terror they survived, the soldiers who were husbands and sons.

Link to the programme

Babylon French-English.

I've tried many French-English automatic translation websites. Here I want to recommend one that has reliably helped me translate notes, emails and short passages from newspapers:

Translation.babylon.com has two windows to translate to and from French and English.

So, for example, if you are writing an email in French but are not sure if you got everything right, or have no time to look it up or check with a French speaker, just write it in English, copy-paste into the Babylon window and click translate. Copy-paste the French version.

Do the same for translating back from French.

It's okay for informal correspondence or quick reference, but when you write a serious formal letter in French, make sure it's checked and corrected by a knowledgable French speaker. 

Amazon Declaration.

The Normandy Review of Books by Alexander Anichkin is a participant in the Amazon EU Associates Programme, an affiliate advertising programme designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.co.uk. 

I am publishing this in compliance with the new rules that are coming into force today, 1 April 2013.

When you click on Amazon links on this blog, The Normandy Review of Books earns a small commission. 

A Good Year: the Client Is Never Right.

Some time ago I wrote here about the bad treatment that French clients get from after-sales services.

I was watching A Good Year (wiki), the romantic comedy with Russel Crowe (Max Skinner) and Marion Cotillard (Fanny Chenal), and literally jumped up when Fanny, who runs a busy restaurant, tells Max, who is trying to help her as a waiter:

— Remember, in France the client is never right!

Quod erat demonstrandum.

Here's a 'diaporama' of the film with the catchy French version of Itsy Bitsy Teeny Weeny Tout-Petit Bikini by Richard Anthony:

A Ban on Homework?

KidsinFrance web-site has an item on the appeal by French teachers and parents to ban all homework for two weeks:

Teachers and parents groups are calling for a fortnight's homework ban - starting today - to raise the issue of whether homework helps pupils or, on the contrary, is counterproductive. The FCPE, one of the main parents' associations, and the Icem (Icem-Pedagogie Freinet) are inviting parents and teachers to post their comments on the website 'Ce soir pas de devoirs' (no homework tonight).

Well, with children's schoolday longer than the legally permitted workday for adults, why not extend it for the whole year? Comments on kidsinfrance seem to support the idea.

Image: wikimedia

OK1 (French Netspeak)

Marianne Semeuse.

Franglais is about borrowing Anglo-American words and phrases into French. 

But the French are as inventive with their own version of netspeak as English-speakers. Not least because phonetically read English alpha-numeric contractions, like gr8, mean nothing to a French-speaker. What's 'grhuit'?

Instead, the French are introducing new contractions in internet French and SMS conversations.

Here are a few examples:

-  A+ or @+: means “À plus“, like “later”, or “l8r”.
- ASV: “Âge, Sexe, Ville”, the equivalent of the English “ASL”, or “Age/Sex/Location”.
- b1sur: “Bien sûr“: Of course. The “1″, “un“, makes up for the syllable “-ien.”
- ENTK: “En tout cas”, means ”in any case”.
- OK1: “Aucun“, “none” or ”no one”.
- STP or SVP: “S’il te plait”, “please”.
- TNKT: Means “T’inquiètes“, or “t’inquiètes pas”, meaning “don’t worry” or “no worries”.
- X: Since the word for cross in French ”Croix” is the same for the verb croire (to believe), for the second, you can use just an X, as in “Crois-moi“ or “X moi“, (believe me!)

- via Patricia Mansfield-Devine, SecondCherry - the over-40s babe. Thanks, Trish.

Le client est roi, mais... le roi est mort.

This excerpt is from the eight lessons about the French by Elain Sciolino, the former New York Times correspondent in Paris.

Execution of Louis XVI.

Anyone who has lived in France can testify that after sales service and, generally, customer relations is a horror area of French life. Often worse than people-state relationship in the country.

3: The Customer Is Always Wrong
 
It is hard for French merchants to admit they are wrong, and seemingly impossible for them to apologize. Instead, the trick is to somehow get the offended party to feel the mistake was his or her own. I’m convinced the practice was learned in the strict French educational system, in which teachers are allowed to tell pupils they are “zeros” in front of the entire class.
A doctor I know told me he once bought a coat at a small men’s boutique only to discover that it had a rip in the fabric. When he tried to return it, the shopkeeper gave him the address of a tailor who could repair it — for a large fee. They argued, and the doctor reminded the shopkeeper of the French saying, “The customer is king.”
“Sir,” the shopkeeper replied, “We no longer have a king in France.”

Audrey Tautou on English Men

Audrey Tautou thinks English men are more 'elegant and gentlemanly' than French men.



And listen to her on on today's Woman's Hour. The actress is England promoting her new film Beautiful Lies.

The Parallel Worlds (DSK)

Ever since the outbreak of the Strauss-Kahn affair I’ve been puzzling: why the press in France had no qualms about publishing the name and then the photos of the charwoman who is the main witness, and the victim, in the case against the former IMF chief, while the media in America and Britain have refrained from doing so on ethical grounds. And with that, the French are lambasting the Anglo-Saxon media for their treatment of Dominique Strauss-Kahn himself.

I was glad to find that I am not alone in this puzzlement. In comparing the way Anglo-American press treats the Strauss-Kahn affair with the situation in France nothing is more startling than France24, the news and analysis TV channel. It has both English and French language versions. The English is run according to 'Anglo-Saxon' standards, but the French follows customs of the country's press.

(read  the full post on Tetradki)

Learning by Rote. A French Example.

Read an English version the song here on the Tetradki blog.

The French education system puts too much emphasis on learning by rote, they say.

Maybe, but it works, at least for some purposes. Just watch how Gilbert Bécaud, the legendary chansonnier, teaches the German audience about Remembrance. The song is about the death of a poet, when everybody cries for him. The bleuets, which appear in the last line of the song, are cornflowers, the French equivalent of the English poppy used at Remembrance ceremonies. But bleuets are also the national flower of Germany – die Kornblume.


Gilbert Becaud - Quand il est il mort le poete par Leroidukitch

Quand il est mort le poète,
Quand il est mort le poète,
Tous ses amis,
Tous ses amis,
Tous ses amis pleuraient.

Quand il est mort le poète,
Quand il est mort le poète,
Le monde entier,
Le monde entier,
Le monde entier pleurait.

On enterra son étoile,
On enterra son étoile,
Dans un grand champ,
Dans un grand champ,
Dans un grand champ de blé.

Et c'est pour ça que l'on trouve,
Et c'est pour ça que l'on trouve,
Dans ce grand champ,
Dans ce grand champ,
Dans ce grand champ de bleuets.

Photo by Böhringer Friedrich.

Blonds, Blondes and Manuals

Catherine Deneuve

I've just snooped a piece of advice on how to stop a husband looking into his wife's mailbox – mark it 'Instruction Manuals'. Why, of course! It's beneath a man to check the manual.

And it's equally easy to attract a man's attention. Another writer in France suggested to her husband who had been trying in vain to get his boss's attention to an important proposal: put on the file a large label saying 'Blondes'. 

Don't we underestimate our women?

And while I was scribbling this I also discovered another difference between British and American – their attitude to blondes. Here is what Oxford English Dictionary says:

USAGE The spellings blonde and blond correspond to the feminine and masculine forms in French. Although the distinction is usually retained in Britain, American usage since the 1970s has generally preferred the gender-neutral blond. The adjective blonde may still refer to a woman’s (but not a man’s) hair color, though use of the noun risks offense (See that blonde over there?) the offense arises from the fact that the color of hair is not the person. The adjective applied to inanimate objects (wood, beer) is typically spelled blond.

Photo by Georges Biard

Thanks for advice, Kirsten Stroud and Nadya Pommier

 

This post also published on Tetradki blog

New Books: The Somme Stations, by Andrew Martin

Andrew Martin has published several detective novels with Jim Stringer, a railwayman reassigned to the North Eastern Railway police in Edwardian England, as the main character. Jim, nicknamed the Steam Detective, has quite a following and readers will be looking forward to his new adventures in France during the Battle of the Somme, especially where there is an unusual twist. Here is what the publishers say:

On the first day of the Somme enlisted railwayman Jim Stringer lies trapped in a shell hole, smoking cigarette after cigarette under the bullets and the blazing sun. He calculates his chances of survival – even before they departed for France, a member of Jim's unit had been found dead.

During the stand-off that follows, Jim and his comrades must operate by night the vitally important trains carrying munitions to the Front, through a ghostly landscape of shattered trees where high explosive and shrapnel shells rain down. Close co-operation and trust are vital. Yet proof piles up of an enemy within, and as a ferocious military policeman pursues his investigation into the original killing, the finger of accusation begins to point towards Jim himself . . .

Andrew Martin is also known for his non-fiction How to Get Things Really Flat: A Man's Guide to Ironing, Dusting and Other Household Arts.

The Somme Stations is released in early March 2011, book web-sites take orders now.


Some of the links here take you to Amazon.com. If you shop from France use the 'livres en Anglais' search box at the top of the side-bar to save on delivery charges.

Vikings, Normans and the English Vocabulary

Johnson is the Economist newspaper's (magazine's) language blog (named after Dr Samuel Johnson). It is produced by a team of writers-linguists and deals with everyday language matters with great authority. 

Johnson recently gave a good thrashing to Stephen Fry – and others – who like to boast that English language has the richest vocabulary in the world.  If you heard such claims, or repeated them, or argued with your French friends about the subject, I suggest you read the Johnson take on the topic to have a clearer idea of what we are talking about:

STEPHEN FRY, whom I always enjoy,  makes a claim (at about 6:10 of the video) [English] certainly has the largest vocabulary ... by a long, long, long long, way. Rather as China is to the rest of the world in population, English is in the population of its words. Is that true, a friend e-mails me to ask?

There's a longish answer. For the summary version, skip to the end. For the really short version, though, the answer is "Sorry, Mr Fry." English is certainly rich in vocabulary, but this claim is nearly always made by enthusiastic lovers of English who don't really know how the many varieties of language beyond English work. It's not that another language has more words. The comparison simply can't be made in any agreed apples-to-apples way. 

For example: 

Moreover, many languages habitually build long words from short ones. German is obvious. Are compounds new words? Given the possibilities for compounds, German would quickly outstrip English, with new legitimate German "words", which Germans would accept without blinking, coined every day. Just one quick glance at the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung's home-page finds Abschiedsvorstellung ("leave-taking performance", about South Africa putting on a display for the departing French in the World Cup), Weltmarktführer ("world market leader"), Stromtarifrechner ("electricity bill calculator")  and so on. There's no reason to say "it's incredible how the Germans have a word for 'leave-taking performance'," because to create such words ad hoc is banal in German. This is even truer for Turkish. So Turkish and German and a host of others like them have "more words" than English. 

And, giving the summary, Johnson comes to us, Normans:

We could go on in this vein for quite a while, but that will do for now. If I had to give a short answer to the question "does English have the biggest vocabulary?," I'd say "Who cares?" English is a rich and beautiful language, not least because England has been conquered by Vikings and Normans, and has happily been open to foreign influence through its history. We know more of its wonderful rare words because English has been written for over a thousand years, and its many dialects are well described. That's good enough for me.  We shouldn't need it to have the biggest vocabulary—which can't be defined in any sensible way—to enjoy it.


And here is Blackadder trying to rewrite Johnson's dictionary with the help of Baldrick:

A Patchwork Planet, by Anne Tyler

Ten years ago, oh happy day, shopping in Tesco's (that isn't the happy bit), I spotted a new book with Jeremy Paxman's comment on the back cover; 'I was bowled over... I finished the book wishing it had been twice as long'. Paxman impressed? This had to be worth reading! Conclusion: Anne Tyler is brilliant.


AT washes gently over every day issues (relationships, expectations, temptation, the dependency of old age...) and gives them a normality – life is like that. She writes with such acute observation and insight that the minutiae are like moments of revelation. Her protagonist Barnaby Gaitlin lives in a dark shadow of disapproval, cast aside by his parents, particularly his caustic mother. His old, wealthy Baltimore family set up the Gaitlin Foundation, patronizingly dispensing compassion (which doesn't extend to Barnaby). Ironically, through his 'menial' work with elderly people, Barnaby discretely personifies the compassion for which his family so publicly stands. In spite of strained family relations, a broken marriage, a faltering father-daughter relationship, he is generous, funny, curious, sometimes profound and importantly to the plot, trustworthy.

Anne Tyler  provokes an appreciation of the ordinary and unremarkable and shows everyone has the potential to offer something extraordinary to the patchwork of life. This is the Pulitzer prize winner’s 14th novel and if you haven’t yet discovered her this is a good book by which to make her acquaintance.

review by ©Marie Hayward

Faux Amis

With the French bemoaning the English invasion of their language and the English sniggering at Franglais, it is important to show how much it is the other way round – how deep is French penetration into English. There is a huge overlap in words, phrases and notions, but there is also a mass of faux amis, words that sound or look the same, but have different meaning.

Ellie Malet Spradbery put together a delightful little book False Friends – Faux Amis based on her own experience of traveling in France. I recommend it to anyone who has a lust for all things French, and it should be a must have book for Brits who settle in the old Angevin Empire - from Normandy to Poitou to Dordogne to Provence.  

The book is not an academic study of how words travelled from French to English and from English to French acquiring different meanings, nor is it a dictionary. It is rather a fun collection of language curiosities picked on the move. And it reads as such, which makes it really enjoyable. 

Apart from faux amis there are sections with current French idioms to enliven your vocabulary and lists of trees, fruit, fish, animals, vegetables and flowers, all handy when you go shopping in France or chat to you neighbours. In fact, the book is published in a format fit for a handbag or a large pocket, and has wide margins where you can scribble down your own favourite pickings of faux amis or just useful words and expressions.

The publishers' note sent to me suggests that Faux Amis is an ongoing project and the book is to be expanded and improved. Spradbery runs a blog at elmalet.blogspot.com, so I hope anyone can go there to offer their own finds.

A few nitpickings. 

I wish there was an alphabetical index of all the words, English and French included in the book. It would be better if it had more examples of how the words are actually used - or misused by both the French and the English. And of course while spelling may be the same, pronounciation is very different. Coin is not pronounced as coin in English, but koo-ehn. At a vide-grenier the other day, an Englishman was trying to attract buyers to his stock of 'crocodile' flip-flops by shouting all day 'trois yoo-rohs' (euros). Euro in French sounds more like Ero from Eros. There is very little, if any, help on how to say words the French way which is a pity.

One of my own favourite faux amis are cheminee (fireplace) and chambre (bedroom). You can see French estate agents describing property in English as 'three-chamber with chimney' (three-bedroom house with an open fire). This is not in the book. 

Another one, demand (request, in the book) slips into English-in-France so quickly, many stop realising they are different. And every time I see the sign deviation on the road I go mad trying to remember the actual word used for the same purpose in England –  diversion. 

Here are a few more, some not in Spradbery's book:

Defense - not allowed - Defense de fumer (no smoking), Defense de stationer (no parking), Defense de uriner (no urinating, yes, there are many of these too)

Donjon - keep of the castle, not dungeon.

Sensible - is sensitive in French, English sensible is raisonnable

Special - difficult (character)

Mouton - sheep, not mutton.

Send in your own favourites to put here or on Ellie's blog.

Asterix surrenders to McDonald's

Gerard Depardieu played Obeliks

McDonald's has signed up cartoon star Asterix the Gaul in its latest marketing campaign in France. The tiny French warrior is to replace Ronald McDonald next year, it is reported.

The new Mac-do campaign is to start at the time the movie Asterix and Cleopatra is released.

Leader of the French green movement José Bové led an attack on a McDonald's restaurant near Millau, southern France, in 1999.

Asterix is France's favourite cartoon character. About 300 million Asterix comics have been sold since 1961 when it first appeared.



Depardieu played Obelix, Asterix's giant mate in the 1999 film
Astérix et Obélix contre César. (Asterix and Obelix Take On Ceasar)

Photo by Georges Biard

'Appel du 18 Juin', 70 years since

General De Gaulle made his famous appeal on BBC Radio 70 years ago. Even though few people in France heard the general, the day is considered as the beginning of French Resistance to nazi occupation. Almost single-handedly De Gaulle saved the honour of France. He urged the French to fight on.

"Is defeat final? No! De Gaulle was saying.
"Believe me, I who am speaking to you with full knowledge of the facts, and who tell you that nothing is lost for France. The same means that overcame us can bring us victory one day. For France is not alone! She is not alone! She is not alone! She has a vast Empire behind her. She can align with the British Empire that holds the sea and continues the fight. She can, like England, use without limit the immense industry of the United States."

Here is a recording of the appeal made four days later, on the 22nd. On the 18th the BBC didn't record the speech. However the word spread in France after 18th and on the 22nd many more listened. And on the 28th Churchill's government recognized De Gaulle as 'leader of all the Free French'. 'This was vital, but it laid him open to accusations of being a British puppet, ' write Robert and Isabelle Tombs in their brilliant book on Anglo-French relations, 'That Sweet Enemy' ('Cette Exquise Ennemie'). Not only few heard, initially, even fewer joined the General.

'Petain's authority and ambient Anglophobia blighted de Gaulle's efforts to rally support. ... Those who did join de Gaulle were not only adventurous, but junior and often rather unusual... This gave the Free French a reputation for extremism and eccentricity. De Gaulle was no more successful among permanent French residents in London, of whom there were about 10,000: only 300 volunteered. Civilian refugees, like those in uniform, mostly wanted to get home.'  

(from 'That Sweet Enemy')

Full text of the appeal is here in English and here in French.

On the same day Churchill spoke in Parliament of the coming 'Battle of Britain'. It is that speech which is remembered by the rousing words, in a thousand years, men will still say: 'This was their finest hour.'



President Sarkozy is in France today for commemorations of l'Appel de 18 juin:

The Birds. A Fair Distribution.

The Big Bird count today starts in France - take part if you're not heading for the beach.

We're absolutely swarmed with little birds. Tits, finches, starlings, wrens, swallows - everywhere. Open windows - and they start flying in and out of the house! At times it's a bit like in Daphne Du Maurier's The Birds. At least they are not (yet) attacking us.

One swallow got into the kitchen and couldn't find a way out. I threw a tea towel over him and gently let him go outside.

Which reminded me of a passage from Henry Thoreau's 'Walden. Life on the Golden Pond'.

November 9, 1857

Mr Farmer tells me that on Sunday he went to his barn, having nothing to do, and thought he would watch  the swallows, republican swallows. The old bird was feeding her young, and he sat within fifteen feet, overlooking them. There were five young, and he was curious to know how each received its share; and as often as the bird came with a fly, the one at the door (or opening) took it, and then they all hitched round one notch, so that a new one was presented at the door, who received the next fly; and this was the invariable order, the same one never received two flies in succession. At last the old bird brought a very small fly, and the young one that swallowed it did not desert his ground but waited to receive the next, but when the bird came with another, of the usual size she commenced a loud and long scolding at the little one, till it resigned its place, and the next in succession received the fly.

Some of the links here take you to Amazon.com. If you shop from France use the 'livres en Anglais' search box at the top of the side-bar to save on delivery charges. 

A Tireless Lover Who Reduced State Deficit and Instilled Tolerance

France has found a new political pin up: a charismatic leader who reduced the country's deficit by a third and embodied the legend of the tireless French lover - Henri IV (see the Daily Telegraph article).

Henry IV was King of France from 1589 to 1610 and (as Henry III) King of Navarre from 1572 to 1610. As a Huguenot, Henry was involved in the Wars of Religion before ascending the throne in 1589. Before his coronation as king of France at Chartres, he changed his faith from Calvinism to Catholicism.  "Paris is worth a Mass", he declared. In 1598, he enacted the Edict of Nantes, which guaranteed religious liberties to the Protestants and thereby effectively ended the civil war.

He cut the state deficit by 30 per cent and increased state revenues by 50 per cent while barely raising taxes

One of the most popular French kings, both during and after his reign, Henry showed great care for the welfare of his subjects. Henry was nicknamed in France 'le bon roi Henri' ("the good king Henry"). He is perhaps best known for promising all French workers the "means to have a chicken in the pot every Sunday". (See a recipe for poule au pot).

He was assassinated by a fanatical Catholic, François Ravaillac, in Paris 400 years ago (May 14, 1610.) The anniversary spurred a wave of national nostalgia, with his prowess being feted across the country with a series of books, exhibitions and articles. Henri was a success for France in every sense – politically, economically and romantically.

His right-hand man, the Duke of Sully, managed to cut the state deficit by 30 per cent and increase state revenues by 50 per cent while barely raising taxes. All this has turned him into a national icon.

Henry IV is the eponymous subject of the royal anthem of France, "Marche Henri IV".  Here is a video of the song:



And below is a Russian song about king Henry IV from the film 'The Hussar Ballad' (1962, music by Tikhon Khrennikov, events relate to Napoleon's disastrous invasion of Russia in 1812)

German Humour and American Shooting

8-9 May 2010 marks the 65th anniversary of the end of the second world war in Europe

Brits - and many others - think of the Germans as a rather humourless lot. Antony Beevor's book D-Day: The Battle for Normandy dispels many myths about the Allied landings in France and the subsequent fighting. Among them is the myth that Germans don't have a sense of humour.

Beevor cites this German joke that was circulating among the Wehrmacht soldiers.

'The almost total absence of the Luftwaffe to contest the enemy's air supremacy continued to provoke anger among German troops, although they often resorted to black humour. 'If you can see silver aircraft, they are American,' went one joke. 'If you can see khaki planes, they are British, and if you can't see any planes, then they're German.'

The other version of this went, 'If British planes appear, we duck. If American planes come over, everyone ducks. And if the Luftwaffe appears, nobody ducks.' American forces had a different problem. Their trigger-happy soldiers were always opening fire at aircraft despite orders not to because they were far more likely to be shooting at an Allied plane than an enemy one.'

I highly recommend the book. Even if you are not a history buff, soldiers' stories Beevor collected would liven up any of your tours to D-Day sights and memorials.


Tip: if you are buying second-hand, check that the first 17 pages of the book are not missing. Last year, as the 65th anniversary of D-Day was approaching and publishers were rushing the book to sellers part of the circulation came out without  them.


And if you shop from France use the 'livres en Anglais' search box at the top of the side-bar to save on delivery charges.

Below is a fragment from the war epic 'The Battle of Britain'. Goering asks his pilots how he can help them. 'Give me a squadron of Spitfires,' one of them says.