I’ve only dated two French women, but both lived up to the stereotypes, good and bad.
They’re contrary as all hell – complain about the weather, and they’ll tell you to grow up. Comment that it’s a nice day, and they’ll roll their eyes and tell you it’s better on the Riviera.
But they more than make up for it all in the bedroom.
Other things I’m grateful to the French for:
They prove that we Americans don’t really respect people who stand up to us; and
The quality of their cars ensures that we’ll never make the worst ones on the planet.
The food, the wine, the cheese.
Frnech cinema: so much of the dreck that Hollywood churns out is just that: it is formulaic(which is why we have so many sequels), and targetted at the free-spending 15-22 year old age group. Tha’s why it is so refreshing to see a movie that MAKES you think!
In engineering, the French have chosen some very interesting ways to do things.
The fact is, France has chosen to be its own country…France is a modern country that makes supersonic jet fighters, nuclear submarines, and aircraft carrers. It does this with mostly indigenous technologies.
And,I think the French are right about nuclear power-they get over 80% of their electricity from nuclear, and they have modern power plants. Something I think we ought to emulate.
Yeah, I understand at one point the U.S. was actually kind of grateful to this Lafayette guy… (and recognized the fact that the U.S. would still be colonies without the French)
And I’ve got one thing to say to
(Or maybe you haven’t noticed that half of our language came from French? Far more than ‘le weekend’ and company have made it into French). In fact, I don’t think England ever conquered France, did they?
Not to mention that Charlemagne guy who conquered more of Europe than England ever did. And you have to admit there’s a reason that French was the international language of diplomacy for centuries and that crazy people want to be Napoleon and not Prince Charles
Has anyone mentioned just the general concept of women speaking English with ze delightful accent? Or, for the other extreme, canned goods and Pasturization?
I don’t even get why anyone would call them the “damned French”. Most of the things Americans seem to dislike about them can pretty much be found in the USA. The food, the countryside and the wine are all fantastic. The women can make the eyes pop from your head and my wife assures me that many of the young men are not at all shabby (although she was mystified how they got so ugly when they got older ). The breads and pastries are all wonderful. Even if you don’t care for French biere, they bring in some really good stuff from Belgium. And the language is easily one of the most beautiful in the world, even if it’s a terribly difficult for me to pronounce correctly. Oh, and finally, that thing the French do with their tongues, not with the mouth, but a bit lower. There should be a museum just for that!
Voltaire, Baudelaire, Proust, Gide, Camus and (a cheat) Beckett.
Rameau, Belioz and Messiaen.
Gance, Renoir, Resnais, Godard, Demy.
Deneuve.
Manet, etc. etc. Picasso as honorary.
Laplace, Poincare, Zinn-Justin.
And places: St. Denis, St. Chapelle, the Musee Cluny, at least one obscure restaurent on the West Bank, Avignon and Albi.
Technically, giving the French total credit for winning the Battle of Hastings is incorrect. It was the Normans who defeated the Anglo-Saxons. The Normans were Norse who settled in the north of France and eventually adopted the French language. Even though there was some intermarriage between the Norse and the French, you should also give at least partial credit to the Scandanavians for the victory.
Not to mention that Charlemagne guy who conquered more of Europe than England ever did. And you have to admit there’s a reason that French was the international language of diplomacy for centuries and that crazy people want to be Napoleon and not Prince Charles.
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Charlemagne was a Frank–a Germanic tribe. Napoleon was a French-speaking Corsican which, ethnically, is probably closer to Italian than French.
). The breads and pastries are all wonderful. Even if you don’t care for French biere, they bring in some really good stuff from Belgium. And the language is easily one of the most beautiful in the world, even if it’s a terribly difficult for me to pronounce correctly. Oh, and finally, that thing the French do with their tongues, not with the mouth, but a bit lower. There should be a museum just for that!
