HOW NOT TO SPEAK FRENCH.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XXXXV, Issue 203, 23 September 1903, Page 4

HOW NOT TO SPEAK FRENCH.

By tar the most terrifying accompaniment of the Continental tourist season, is the onslaught habitually msde upon the French language by the touring Briton.

A praiseworthy effort to reduce this campaign of misrepresentations and mutilation to dimensions more befitting the cordial sentiments now happily existing between the two countries has been msde by Mr Leon Delbos, instruc- , tor in French to royal naval cadets in H.M.S. Britannia, who has written a little book called " John Bull in [France; or, French as it is Spoken." It is a book of conversations, not about the penwiper of the gardener's wife, but about things which do really happen in everyday life, and it is written in good colloquial French. The underlying idea is that John Bull crosses the Channel and makes his way to Paris, conversing freely as he goes, Thus we have a serious of useful dialogues all likely to happen in actual life. Prefixed to the conversations are a number of warnings of what not to say. Thus, when you want to say that a young lady is " a good match," you should not say she is " une belle allumette," although "allumette" means " match," because that would mean she was as thin as a match. Nor should you call her a " meche " (or " match "), bepause that would mean that she was inflammable. II you have been to a pleasant dance do not say, " J'ai eu une bonne danse," for that would mean that you have had a good thrashing. A friend of Mr Delbos's ordered a steak one day in a restaurant. " Oui, M'sieur, avec plaisir " (" Yes, sir, with pleasure "), said the waiter. But the friend thought that "plaisir" was a kind of light pastry, so he roared out iu tits best French he could muster, " No, no. (Nqt with ' plaisir,' but with fried potatoes.'' But the best story of all and tye 1 most terrible warning is that of the lady who, wishing to know whether a 1 cab was engaged, said, " Oocher, e l es vous fianca ?" (" Ooachman, are you 1 engaged [to be married] ?') The coach - 1 man smiled and replied," No, miss." 1 " Then," said she," prenez-moi" ("take me "). Tha cabby smiled broadly, raised 1 his hat, and said, " Certainly, miss, with the greatest of pleasure." It was some hours afterwards that tbe poor lady discovered that she had made an ofier of marriage to a cabman and been accepted! —Daily Mail.