At the beginning of every year, I look forward to purchasing new calendars. My two favorite types of calendars are wall calendars and flip calendars. This year I went with a French theme and, so far, I've been delighted with the results...of my wall calendar.
For my flip calendar this year, I get a brand new french phrase every day. Around the beginning of January, the phrases were cute and applicable, like Happy New Year! or Au Boulot! (Get back to work!). But for the past couple of weeks, I've been somewhat confused by the phrases I'm greeted with every morning.
As I'm assuming most people who buy this calendar are looking for common phrases that we can use in conversation in order to practice the French language, I'm surprised to learn that this is not the case for the "Living Language Flip Calendar of 2008."
Let me give you an example. The French phrase for January 25, 2008 is "La peur ne se commande pas" which means "You can't control fear." Okaaaaaaay...What ever happened to "I really like your sweater today!" or "How are the kids?" I personally can't remember the last time I've ever walked up to someone with a strong desire to darkly tell them fear cannot be controlled. And, frankly, it kind of makes January 25th a day I'm not all that much looking foward to, to tell you the truth.
And how about February 5th? I'm still trying to figure out how I'm going to work in "Elle ne peut plus ecrire" into a jovial lighthearted conversation, seeing as how it means "She can't write anymore." Are the makers of this flip calendar operating a small torture chamber somewhere? What does one have to do to a person to make them not be able to write anymore? And why, oh why, would we ever want to talk about it in French???
For all our sakes, I hope the makers of this calendar don't get upset this year because who knows what next year's calendar will look like if they do. And I'm pretty sure all our suspicions will be confirmed on September 3 as the phrase of the day on that day is "Je pars pour la Suisse apres-demain" (I'm leaving for Switzerland the day after tomorrow). On this day, rest assured I will be using this in a conversation with my mob boss.
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2 comments:
Thank you! I was Googling the meaning of "la peur ne se commande pas" and I found it on your blog, so today you have helped someone you have never met. I needed a witty rejoinder to that particular phrase and mine was "No, but you SHOULD fear control...." which on reflection is probably not incredibly witty. Oh well.
Your blog though seems to be very well written and quite witty, so maybe I will revisit on occasion.
Thanks again K-k-k-Katy-person found through Google!
I was googling the phrase "hotties with naughty bodies" and hit 'I'm Feeling Lucky' on my google search. Boy, was I feeling lucky, too...it lead me straight to the K-K-K santuary...I mean, K-K-K-Katy. That would sound pretty bad without your name in there...
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