French as she is spoke

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A long time ago – in the 1980s – I spoke French pretty well. I got a Foreign Service score of 4, which means that I could converse on a university level with people; I still had an accent, however.

 

 

 

 

And this years, after twenty-five years, I was going to France.

 

 

 

Imagine my nervousness after twenty-five years of not speaking French on a daily basis. I was terrified. I read a lot of French to prepare myself, and tried to practice as much as I could.

 

 

 

As it turns out, I was worried about nothing. Language is funny: once it’s in your brain, it’s there forever. It took me a few days to get going (mostly nervousness, I think), but by Day Two of the trip, I was having long involved conversations with people.

 

 

 

(Please note: my accent was still atrocious (even I could hear it), and my grammar was not the best. But I could make myself understood.)

 

 

 

I’d forgotten the picturesque phrases: all the different ways to say “goodbye,” depending on the time of day and the situation. “A tout a l’heure.” “A bientot.” “Adieu.” “Au revoir.” These came back quickly, thank goodness.

 

 

 

Then there are all the English-language borrowings (I think there are more of them now than there were in the 1980s): “sandwich,” “parking,” “weekend.” I bought a package of Petit Ecolier cookies with a contest advertised on the front: “GAGNEZ UN BABY FOOT!” Can you guess what a “baby foot” is? It’s a foosball table. Charmante, non?

 

 

 

Then there are the faux amis – the “false friends.” These are words that look like English, but aren’t the same at all. These work both ways. “What’s that sign?” Partner asked one day on the bus.

 

 

 

“Deviation,” I said. “It means ‘detour.’”

 

 

 

“Why don’t they just say ‘detour’?” he asked. “Isn’t that a French word?”

 

 

 

“Well, yes, but –“

 

 

 

There’s no explaining these things.

 

 

Best of all: we were watching the French version of “The Price is Right” (“Le Juste Prix”), and the contestant – a man named Fabrice – mentioned his “conjoint,” a man named Emmanuel. “Aha!” I said. “Now I know the correct French term for ‘partner’! It’s ‘conjoint’!”

 

 

 

“As in conjoined twins?” Partner said darkly.

 

 

 

“Well, indirectly, yes,” I said, “but – “

 

 

 

“I don’t like it,” he said positively.

 

 

 

“I do like it,” I said. “Maybe I’ll start referring to you as le conjoint in the blog.”

 

 

 

France has an effect on people. Partner looked at me with Gallic disdain. “Non,” he said definitively.

 

 

 

And that’s the end of that.

 

 

 

(But I still think it’s a better word than “partner.”)

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Absinthe: the review

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As I wrote some months ago, I bought an adorable little bottle of absinthe some months ago. It was called “Le tourment vert,” and it held about three ounces of what I hoped would be the authentic Green Fairy. (I'm a big fan of fin-de-siecle Paris, and wanted to find out more about what exactly Rimbaud and Verlaine and Debussy and Satie and Picabia and Apollinaire were slugging down all that time.) I even bought a box of designer sugar-cubes to prepare for the Big Moment (you'll understand why after a bit).

 

 

But I waited for a special occasion to drink my absinthe.

 

 

Well, what's more special than a hurricane?

 

 

The hurricane came and went. It was, apart from a hiccup in our electricity, a big nothing. I mostly napped through it. As evening fell, I remembered my little bottle of Tourment Vert, and decided that this was, in a word, le moment de verite.

 

 

I looked up the instructions online: one part absinthe to five parts cold water. No ice in the drink. Absinthe in the glass first; the water is to be dripped slowly into the glass, preferably through a sugar cube held in a special slotted absinthe spoon.

 

 

I did not invest in an absinthe spoon. Maybe when Partner and I tie the knot, I'll put it on the wedding registry. I used a salad fork. I did pay almost seven dollars for those bloody designer sugar cubes, though.

 

 

Absinthe is green. When you add water, it becomes cloudy – as we Francophones say, “louche.” This did in fact happen as I dripped the water over the sugar cube / salad fork. Aha! Paris 1919, here I come!

 

 

I took a sip. I'd been warned that the stuff was bitter, which was the reason for the sugar. It was not at all bitter, or only slightly so. The sugar was a pleasant addition. But the absinthe itself -

 

 

It tasted just like Pernod.

 

 

Aha.

 

 

They can't make this stuff like they used to, full of wormwood-based toxins. So they make a green-colored simulacrum and flavor it with anise, which – of course – turns cloudy when you add water to it.

 

 

Well, that was a third of the (tiny) bottle. Time for another experiment: this time I tried flaming the sugar-cube and dropping it into the absinthe. No luck; the absinthe was (supposedly) 100 proof, but it wouldn't catch fire. I did a sort of creme-brulee thing with the sugar-cube and stirred it into the absinthe, and dripped some water in, and -

 

 

Well, what do you know? A nice warm feeling was creeping over me. Not like regular inebriation this time. Sort of a warm universal benevolence. I was getting very French by this time, and my Mallarme was coming back to me: “Une belle ivresse m'engage, o mes divers / amis . . .”

 

 

Yeah, whatever.

 

 

Just a little left in the bottle. Back to Method #1, with the salad fork; I was more skillful at it this time, and the sugar dissolved more quickly. The flavor wasn't unpleasant.

 

 

But now I was getting a headache.

 

 

I drink with some regularity, and I know the various phases of inebriation. And normally I do not get a headache after three rather small drinks.

 

 

Evidently there's some thujone in this stuff after all.

 

 

Morning after: head throbbing like the sound of car-horns in the streets of Montmartre.

 

 

Memo to myself: Forget “Le Tourment vert.” Buy a better brand of absinthe.

 

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