Joe the Plumber

I join to this plumbiferous post, an other post of Roger Cohen on NYTimes.com :

"Before Joe the Plumber, the latest celebrity of the U.S. presidential campaign, we had the Polish plumber, star of the 2005 French referendum that sent a much-heralded European Union constitution into the toilet.

[...]

In time, sociology departments at the Sorbonne and Stanford will complete studies on this Gallo-American plumbing thing. Meanwhile, it’s clearly time for everyone to start searching for his inner plumber."

Once again, you can't imagine how words are French. We say "plombier" in France, this kind of artisan who puts lead pipes all around your house. As you know, the competition between German-Saxon and French-Roman words is terrifying. You have to make a choice, lead or plumb, to end or finish, to start or commence, German or French, hardness or delicacy.
Plumb, finish, commence, these words are so sweet, so French...

Plumber comes from plumb, wich comes from "plomb" in French. We have an unique word for lead and plumb, that is "plomb". Plomb is a dangerous but famous metal. They have burried kilometers of lead tubes in the big royal garden of Versailles to build an infernal machinery of fountains. Louis XVI was a famous clock-maker but he was not a good leader.

These craftmen who put plomb pipes everywhere was named "plombiers", or royal plumbers.

We have this dimension in French : a lead-er can't be a plumb-er, the 2005 French referendum became a 'no', the European Union constitution had got a leak!

The Polish Plumber, 2005, France.

Wall Road

I know, my precedent post about Bankruptcy was not good.

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Bankruptcy, or banqueroute in French, is a tender spot. But, you have to note that banque-route is like a banque-déroute.
I mean, we have this verb - dérouter - in French, and you - to reroute - in English, so, a banque-route is like a bank-rout.

Espagñol : bancarrota
Deutsch : bankerott
from Italian : banqua rotare

Well, it's not my French lesson of the day, but I don't know why in English bank-rupt(cy) tend to the rupture !

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So, my first lesson of this autumn concerns, AGAIN, this cute letter "s" in es or os syllables, with these beautiful French accents, acute and circumflex.

Do you remember ? : Hospital, hostel or hostess... they become hôpital, hôtel or hôtesse in French.

The circumflex accent is written, not spoken, not pronounced - (that is a weird post-mediaeval syntax) - and, historically, it replaces "s".

So, about this good autumn and its good fruits : can you imagine a nice brown châtaigne in your plate ?... a nice chastaigne ?... a nice chast-aigne ?... a nice chest-nut !

Do you know the word écureuil in French ?

- écureuil -

What can you do with this word ? Can we put an "s" ? Yessss ! An acute, like a circumflex, can replace "s" :

- écureuil -

- escureuil -

- escuriol -

- scuriol - (diminutive Latin)

- squirrel -


En automne, les écureuils mangent des châtaignes dans la forêt !

In autumn, squirrels eat chestnuts in the forest !


...eScureuil - chaStaigne - foreSt... recession... depression...

My friends, my squirrels, it's high time to put your nuts aside !

Créée

créée

Have you ever seen this attractive word : " créée " in a French text ?

cr-éée

That sounds like an exotic Maori word, but it's really French, used everyday.

éée

You know this French verb : "chanter", that means "to sing".

to sing } infinitive form
chanter } infinitive form

Conjugation - present - verb without "er" + ending :

(I) je chante
(you) tu chantes
(he/she) il chante
(we) nous chantons
(you) vous chantez
(they) ils chantent
(participle) chanté

or, if you prefer, verb without "er" + ending :

je chant + e
tu chant + es
il chant + e
nous chant + ons
vous chant + ez
ils chant + ent
chant + é

We can do the same thing with "créer", "to create", participle : créé.

Créé, the participle, you can study this sentence : a created man / un homme créé.

You can put an "e", this letter marks the feminine gender in French : a created girl / une fille créée.


Hercules, a man created by God / Hercule, un homme créé par Dieu.

Brigitte Bardot, a woman created by God / Brigitte Bardot, une femme créée par Dieu.


And God created Woman, 1956, directed by Roger Vadim.

Marie-Antoinette

© Sony Pictures Entertainment

" A Lonely Petit Four of a Queen

By A. O. SCOTT

Published: October 13, 2006 http://www.nytimes.com/

“The problem of leisure/What to do for pleasure.”

The opening lines of “Natural’s Not in It,” by the Gang of Four, are the first words in Sofia Coppola’s “Marie Antoinette,” and they suggest one of that film’s paradoxical themes: The pursuit of sensual delight is trivial compared with other undertakings — just as “the problem of leisure” is surely more of a privilege than a burden — but pleasure is also serious, one of the things that gives life its shape and meaning.

It may be tempting to greet “Marie Antoinette” with a Jacobin snarl or a self-righteous sneer, since it is after all the story of the silly teenager who embodied a corrupt, absolutist state in its terminal decadence. But where’s the fun in such indignation? And, more seriously, where is the justice? To say that this movie is historically irresponsible or politically suspect is both to state the obvious and to miss the point.

“Marie Antoinette,” which will be shown tonight and tomorrow at the New York Film Festival and opens next Friday, is a thoroughly modern confection, blending insouciance and sophistication, heartfelt longing and self-conscious posing with the guileless self-assurance of a great pop song. What to do for pleasure? Go see this movie, for starters.

“Natural’s Not in It” (speaking of great pop songs) blasts over the electrifying pink-and-black opening titles, kicking us into 18th-century Versailles with a jolt of anachronism. (Later there is some period-appropriate Rameau to go with the 80’s post-punk Ms. Coppola favors, and a high-top sneaker tucked amid the fabulous ancien régime couture.) But despite all the bodices and breeches, the horse-drawn coaches and elaborate perukes, “Marie Antoinette” is only masquerading as a costume drama. It would be overstating the case to call it a work of social criticism, but beneath its highly decorated surface is an examination, touched with melancholy as well as delight, of what it means to live in a world governed by rituals of acquisition and display. It is a world that Ms. Coppola presents as exotic and unreal — a baroque counterpart to the Tokyo of “Lost in Translation” — but that is not as far away as it first seems.

[...]

She is profligate and self-indulgent, yes, impetuously ordering up shoes, parties and impromptu trips to Paris. She breaks with tradition by applauding at the opera, and then appears onstage herself. She takes a lover — a dashing Swedish nobleman — and turns Petit Trianon, a royal retreat that was a gift from her husband, into a kind of Versailles V.I.P. room, where she drinks, gardens, reads Rousseau and plays shepherdess. These activities have often been mocked — and were the source of scandal and outrage in the years before the revolution — but through Ms. Coppola’s eyes they are poignant as well as a bit silly.

[...] "

More on http://www.nytimes.com/

© Sony Pictures Entertainment

French Manicure

" "French Manicure"

Robin Heinz Bratslavsky http://www.dermadoctor.com

Ah, the French. They seem to take anything and make it better... at least when it comes to food and fashion, that is. Imagine: A simple potato. Slice it up, dunk it in some artery-clogging grease and you have pomme frites or, as we in the States say, French fries.In the fashion world, a French designer can slap a potato sack on a model, add some string and, voilà! You now have an haute couture gown fit for a supermodel.When it comes to fashion, simply having the word “French” in the description of an idea can yield big bucks. In 1975, Los Angeles-based Orly International, a nail care company, introduced what has become known as the French manicure. Truth be told, the French manicure never had that much to do with the French (other than for the Parisian runway models who sported the look). The classic French manicure actually was created for myriad Hollywood starlets looking for a clean-yet-polished look for their nails.So what exactly makes a manicure a French manicure? Two words: pink and white. Oh, and maybe about 10 bucks. Read on and I’ll explain.Anatomy Of A French ManicureA French manicure begins like any other manicure, but not all manicures are equal. To add some more variables to the mix, a manicure on natural nails is quite different than a manicure on acrylic nails. Let’s talk about the acrylic version first."

[...] "

More on http://www.dermadoctor.com