>Date: Tue, 04 Mar 1997 06:59:27 -0500
>To: "A.D.Smith" <as@boris.umds.ac.uk>
>From: The Richards <smrm@coastalnet.com>
>Subject: RE: this french thing
>
>A French apologist! Well, my French Canadian grandmother didn't like the
French, thinking them snobby, so that whole language thing flies out the
window unless the French didn't think the French Canadians spoke 'proper'
French -- which would indeed make them snobby.
> Reading this thread, I realize that maybe the French don't like nobody,
'cause nobody seems to like them?
> This nasty circle must be broken. So I hereby declare that from this point
forward I like the French. Even if they do wave their private parts at us
and catapult cows.
> Michael, New Bern, NC
>
>At 11:07 AM 3/4/97 GMT, you wrote:
>>It's not that the French don't like anyone, it's that they don't like
>>(and rightly so) people who turn up in the country and refuse to even try
>>to speak the language, on the grounds that everyone should speak English.
>>
>>Many years spent in France, and observation have taught me that the culprits
>>are more often than not, Americans. QED, quo vadis and all the rest.
>>
>>If you don't make any effort to get on with the French on their terms, in
>>their language, you get all you deserve really. If you do make the effort,
>>they are as warm, welcoming and friendly as anyone else. More genuinely
>>friendly than a lot of Americans I've met, sorry.
>.
>>
>>Andy*
>>
>>
>
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