A Year In The Merde -- Questions about French People

I read Stephen Clarke’s book during my last vacation; the story of a young British businessman and his misadventures while working to open a chain of French tea shops. Maybe you can answer my questions.

  1. Do the French really find the phrase “My tailor is rich” funny. Why?

  2. Can you avoid getting ripped off in French cafes by using “waiter slang”?

  3. Were any big French businessmen really suspected of/guilty of importing British beef after the Mad Cow Scare?

Just wondering.

Yes. It is one of the first (or the first) sentence(s) in a popular course to learn English (méthode Assimil). If you read the comic book “Astérix chez les bretons” there are several references to phrases from that teaching method (e.g. my cousin’s boat is smaller than my uncle’s garden).

2 - No. Altho’ it’s hard to see how they can rip you off as, by law, the prices are displayed somewhere on the premises. It is always cheaper to drink standing at the bar rather than sitting on the terrace. (Having said that a young waiter near the Eurostar terminal tested my French by trying to sell me larger beers than I’d ordered - I presume because there were 3 of us chatting in English and my Dad had his case with him. This is the only time in five years a waiter has tried to “rip me off”.)

  1. Yes, I can’t recall the name, it could be “Buffalo Grill”, but one of the well known food chains was prosecuted for this. I was told that some Welsh meat was sold too - the French not making a connection between “Welsh” & “English” (as many nationalities the French use “English” when “British” would be more correct).