May 21, 2008
As we’ve pointed out a few times here, we’re Canadian and many Canadians take great pains to explain to bored foreigners who could not give two shits otherwise: we’re much different from Americans. For example, the Great White North, for those of you who don’t know, is an officially bilingual state, though in reality English speakers are much more well-versed in what’s known as “Cereal box French”. For our American friends, this refers to French language proficiency a well-fed gorilla could comfortably master in sign language, and that might lead the average tourist to a bathroom or the nearest lost and found should they be parachuted into Basse Normandie.
Colloquially, it refers to an ability to do little more in “The Language of Love that’s not Italian” than read the back of a cereal box and determine its ingredients (say, if peanut products, a plastic inhalable toy or trans fats are contained therein) but would not get you off with Juliet Binoche if you met her in a bar.
For those of us who couldn’t converse with an “enfant” with our “terrible” Francais, it’s tempting when encountering a Frenchman to simply precede an English word with “La” or “Le” and hope not to be met with quizzical stares.
One phrase that would not be lost in translation, (like the eponymous movie starring Bill Murray should’ve been), is “Le Binge Drinking”, so obviously adopted from the English as in the UK it’s their national past-time second only to differentiating themselves from lowly continentals and not combing their hair.
Indeed, there are few countries, save for Russia or Germany, who can even begin to compete with the levels of self-ruination we’ve chronicled across the pond.
According to a recent report though, even France is battling the scourge of increased public drunkenness and is mulling over the banning of happy hour, that period of time between work and home life that doesn’t leave you looking at your watch and wondering when it’s time to punch the clock or go to bed.
Other possible measures could include restricting the sale of vodka, whiskey and other high-powered potables in discos to glasses, rather than entire bottles, that you could previously hoist above your head and swing around to the beat of ‘Love in this Club’ while pouring the contents into the mouth of whoever you’d like to bed that evening.
They are also considering raising the legal age to three years below that of the US, where hairlines can recede, and mortgages can be bought at the comparatively ripe age of 21. Mon dieu! Sacre bleu!
