Ersatz TLS discussion
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Weekly TLS
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What Are We Reading? 7 December 2020
AB76 wrote: "FAROE ISLAND WRITERSCoupla weeks ago i commented on the mighty Faroese duo of Heinesen and Jacobsen, both contemparies of the last century who produced some brilliant novels, there is also a third..."
Where else but on a crazy site like this one would I find two fans of Faroese writing?
Gpfr (37) wrote: "Gladarvor wrote (34): "Gpfr wrote (#30): "the French use of 'Anglo-Saxon' often irritates me". "Ah, another pet peeve! I'm just not too sure what would be a good alternative... How would you use ..."
I'm the opposite - I like 'Anglo-Saxon'. I think I first heard it used by Charles de Gaulle, expressing a kind of semi-contempt. OK, rub out 'semi'. After that I started using it myself as a less self-congratulatory/ more ironic way of referring to 'our English-speaking civilization'. It makes me smile.
I found my 'relief text' for when Apeirogon pulls me too far into its heartbreak: Hakan Nesser's The Darkest Day. (Sorry I can't work out how to write the 'a' with the little Scandinavian bubble over it in the first syllable of 'Hakan'.)
Sandya wrote: "AB76 wrote: "Sandya wrote: "AB76 wrote: "Andy wrote: "..and, indulge me with my horror fixation / recommendation, I promise I’ll be brief..The Scandinavians are doing some really interesting horro..."
I have only been in midsummer and its my kind of climate, basically fleece weather, not warm at all. Its odd adjusting to the idea of midsummer being like the UK in chilly april and of course the endless light, the sun doesnt set in midsummer, its a kind of spooky white sky.
Outside Reykjavik which is so different to the rest of the island as it has trees, shrubs and lawns, it is a wild,beautifully desolate wasteland, spotted with ponies, small huts and empty roads
Justine wrote: "AB76 wrote: "FAROE ISLAND WRITERSCoupla weeks ago i commented on the mighty Faroese duo of Heinesen and Jacobsen, both contemparies of the last century who produced some brilliant novels, there is..."
lol hahaha.....
Justine wrote (56): "I like 'Anglo-Saxon'. I think I first heard it used by Charles de Gaulle, expressing a kind of semi-contempt. OK, rub out 'semi'. After that I started using it myself as a less self-congratulatory/ more ironic way of referring to 'our English-speaking civilization'. It makes me smile."One of the books I bought on a whim at a recent Harvard Books Warehouse Sale is Anglo-Saxon Attitudes by Angus Wilson. (It sounded like a semi-campus novel, and I figured I couldn't go far wrong trusting NYRB.) I kind of suspect that Wilson's use of the adjective is not meant to be entirely admiring.
AB76 wrote: "Sandya wrote: "AB76 wrote: "Sandya wrote: "AB76 wrote: "Andy wrote: "..and, indulge me with my horror fixation / recommendation, I promise I’ll be brief..The Scandinavians are doing some really in..."
I admire the Icelanders for making it work! It sounds extraordinary.
giveusaclue (54) wrote: "A few moments ago out of nowhere I started thinking about Eustace Chapuys, the Spanish Ambassador to the Tudor court who featured in The Mirror and the Light and thought it may be interesting to se..."Look forward to your report.
PaleFires (62) wrote: "Hi Justine, I really enjoyed reading the fragments in your quiz even though I bombed. From where I sit, it's no bad thing to baffle all the boffins."Just between you and me and the entire internet I would have done badly, too, if I hadn't made the thing up. I stand in judgement over no one! Anyway, I may close the quiz early, and supply the answers.
Alan Hollinghurst’s writing is absolutely world class, but his first novel, The Swimming-Pool Library, has quite a bit more fucking than I would like. The gay sex in The Line of Beauty and The Stranger’s Child felt incidental to the narrative, but in this novel the congress seems central. The Swimming-Pool Library feels more like an edgy counter-culture novel than those other texts, possibly as a result of having been published earlier, in the 1980s. While Nick Guest was an innocent novice, William Beckwith practices “flaunted deviancy” in the company of his partners and his best friend, with whom he has some excellent catty dialogue. Meanwhile, he is attempting to write the biography of the elderly Lord Nantwich. I wouldn’t recommend The Swimming-Pool Library as highly as the Line of Beauty, but there is some excellent prose – in particular, Hollinghurst is at his best when describing architectural details.I’ve been in the mood for funny books, and so I’m going to try Travels with My Aunt by Graham Greene next. It’s just occurred to me that the sexual counter-culture aspect of The Swimming-Pool Library might be a bit of a trend in my reading in the near future, because I have Portnoy’s Complaint and Naked Lunch lined up.
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I'm the opposite - I like 'Anglo-Saxon'... a less self-congratulatory/ more ironic way of referring to 'our English-speaking civilization'. ..."
But maybe if you lived in France and heard it used regularly as a rather lazy way of making no differences between Britain and the US, it wouldn't make you smile.
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I think it's a great quiz! Well, between us we're halfway through - 12 answers have been found and it's only Tuesday morning 😃
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If you mean me, I absolutely didn't want to 'pick on' Gladarvor, as I said in my first post. I'm sorry if it came over like that. I really appreciate all she's done and she is indeed always charming and affable. My 'pet peeve' is not about her use of the term Anglo-Saxon, but the way I've encountered its use during my working life here in Paris. Anyway, I'll now drop the subject - I've obviously already gone on too long.
Alwynne wrote: "This is a digression! I remembered that Suzanne Moore's resignation came up on an earlier thread and thought if people hadn't seen her article stating why she left I'd post the link:https://unher..."
thanks.,...great shame she had to leave the Guardian
Alwynne wrote: "This is a digression! I remembered that Suzanne Moore's resignation came up on an earlier thread and thought if people hadn't seen her article stating why she left I'd post the link:https://unher..."
Peter Wilby in the New Statesman last week was lamenting how such a talent had been forced to leave the paper
Message 72: re Suzanne MooreIts sad to see her comment about more censorship imposed on her from the left, rather than the right. The left wing silencing of different opinions has always concerned me and can be toxic
I am beginning to wonder what is happening at the Guardian in the last year or so. There was also the situation at the NYT i think where a pro-israel jewish journalist was bullied and intimidated because her opinions were more right wing.
Free speech for me has limits but i really dont think censorship works, disclaimers can be attached to controversial opinions and for the life of me, i am amazed, as a middle class white male, how its women who still are getting the kind of treatment that Suzanne Moore got. An experienced, intelligent, interesting female journalist, reduced to being trolled within and without ...
Sandya wrote: "Message #8Congratulations on the publication! Seriously impressive, any publication outside of one's occupation...
I have to say that I think you have had bad luck with your scientific interactions in the states. During my PhD, at Cold Spring Harbor they had a lending library and book club (paid for by institute's endowment) and at Stony Brook (where I ended up doing my actual PhD work) we had an interdepartmental book club. A poorly attended one to be honest, but during my PhD experience they sponsored our softball and volleyball teams, paid for practice rooms for a band that was formed by a Prof and a student and sponsored a science communication outreach program for elementary students. My friends at NYU, Columbia and Cornell had similar experiences.
I read my Steinbeck of the year, The Wayward Bus, and it did not disappoint. I wouldn't put it at the pinnacle of Steinbeck's catalog, but it was nearer the top than the bottom.As always, Steinbeck thinks, breathes and dreams in allegory. Tortilla Flat, Cannery Row and Sweet Thursday are Arthurian legend, East of Eden, Of Mice and Men , and The Grapes Of Wrath Old Testament.
The Wayward Bus seems more akin to Greek myth. Charon ferrying lost souls back across the River Styx, trying to bring some springtime into life. Busdriver/Charon is Juan Chicoy the half-Mexican proprietor of the the Rebel Corners rest-stop. He hauls people trapped in California's dusty, empty Inland Empire across the Sierra Nevada to the promise and pleasure of the coast. He's hauling pies, travelling salesmen, penny-pinching vacationers, angry waitresses and tired strippers
In this case, Charon too would like to ditch the ferry and the alcoholic wife and catch some summertime in Mexico.
Overall, it was a fairly average story, told in Steinbeck's inimitable wise-ass drawl. He could smirk his way through the phonebook, and I'd give it a read.
Now, I'm onto my yearly Christmas brick of a book, Vassily Grossman's Life and Fate.
No, I've had it on my shelves forever and a day, but I've never opened except for pressing Four-leaf clovers between its pages
Gpfr (70)nwrote: "Justine wrote (66): "I may close the quiz early, and supply the answers...."I think it's a great quiz! Well, between us we're halfway through - 12 answers have been found and it's only Tuesday mo..."
Thanks. I won't close it as long as anyone's interested. Also, re your comment no. 68, I'm sure that 'Anglo-Saxon' feels different in France than in the UK/US. I wonder if that feeling will be strengthened by Britain's departure from the EU?
PaleFires wrote (#69): "Would it be possible at all for a few folks here to stop picking on [Gladarvor]"Thanks a lot Pam. It's all good, don't worry! I was not aware of (French) people mis-using it, and I'll make sure to only employ the term - something I think I do in general - when specifically referring to a common essence to the UK and US. (The fact that I helped with TLS/RG really should not give me a free pass, although I certainly never anticipated to get abused for it!)
Paul wrote (#76): "During my PhD, at Cold Spring Harbor they had a lending library and book club (paid for by institute's endowment) and at Stony Brook (where I ended up doing my actual PhD work) we had an interdepartmental book club."I was waiting to see your reaction. Glad to hear this is not endemic of all labs in the US, this would have surprised me! I'm sorry Sandya was in such a narrow-minded environment, god knows we don't need this on top of everything else in (scientific) academia...
Gpfr wrote (#70): "I think it's a great quiz! Well, between us we're halfway through - 12 answers have been found and it's only Tuesday morning 😃"I was just going to say that to inter too. And quite a few people only have time to write or read the posts properly over the weekend, so I think leaving it open for a week is the right idea!
Messages re Suzanne Moore First part...I have banged on plenty here about cancel culture. You can’t say....(insert word of the week). Words have power and they should be used with care but to hold a different opinion, whether you think it obnoxious or not, is the indicator of a free society.
I am so fed up of people apologising. It has become well nigh meaningless and the 21st century equivalent of putting someone in the stocks. Except reputations can be ruined. Instead of saying, so and so is just an arse, whole careers be ruined by a stray word. And even if the expression is reprehensible, I still uphold the right to be an arse. By using the N word, for example, you just show yourself to be a prize arse.
On the other hand, we need to be aware of what we are saying. There was an excellent article in The G about the power of words. Obama spoke about Defund the Police. Now I also, not being American and not knowing the system, took that to mean Abolish the Police. But that is not the meaning. It is something like riot police that is being referred to. So many votes were given to Trump because of dodgy language, the perils of the snappy slogan. It has so many layers of meaning. Take back control. Of what? how? for whom?
So how does this translate to to literature and the books we read?
PaleFires wrote (#61): " The quotes are very lovely though, haunting, elegiac. Number 22 - (I think I made you up inside my head) - gave me a quite a shock. I've felt the weirdest sense of discombobulation for a few months now, like I'm nothing but someone else's thought projection. (He or she would probably LOVE to have another shot.)"Well, that made me laugh. Soz! I sometimes have that impression of not being really there, like being in a dream, or somebody else's dream. I think this has a lot to do for me about being 'exiled', and not speaking my own native tongue for 95% of the time...
Btw, the one I got from the quiz was 18, not even a UK one! I have heard/read 21 and 22 before, but absolutely unable to attribute them correctly. There are some gorgeous ones in there.
Part 2How does this translate to literature?
Do you as an author want to set yourself up for abuse? Jeanine Cummins, poor woman, was excoriated for writing a thriller for heaven’s sake. Good book, bad book, you should be able to write what you like. The rise of the (yuck) dystopian novel. Poor authors afraid to tackle a tricky subject so set it in the future and you can play with an idea otherwise you may get cancelled? Colum McCann. The reams of opinionated prose about whether he had the right to write about the Israeli/Palestine conflict? Then when that was sorted, he is persona non grata because he may well have been inappropriate with women. If he had been, then fine, charge him. But what difference does that make to the book? Can we only read books written by people who are perfect? Blemish free? Hold the current orthodoxy and proclaim it loud and proud?
Many creative people are indeed obnoxious. I do not think that being an artist should be enough to excuse you but neither should the work be slammed for the personality of the writer. What? I don’t approve of hard drugs. Do I not listen to early Clapton then?
The G’s treatment of Suzanne Moore is another form of censorship dressed up in smug self satisfaction and fear of speaking out.
MEssage 83: Gladarvor wrote: ""I think, more than anything, I was lucky with my PhD advisors and committee members. At CSHL, there were certainly some monster bosses, but working at a "second-tier" university there was not quite so much pressure to produce 6 Nature papers and have fellowships every year. My PhD advisor was working in the hood next to me (picking his nose and contaminating the cells) or promoter bashing the lentiviral backbones himself, so he was able to see first hand what was required to get the job done without working yourself into a stroke. He dragged me to Italy with him because he said I was working too much and needed to see how people could be productive without killing themselves to do it. Didn't work that well
Alwynne wrote: "AB76 (75) wrote: "Message 72: re Suzanne MooreIts sad to see her comment about more censorship imposed on her from the left, rather than the right. The left wing silencing of different opinions h..."
i do wonder about ageism too, the targets of the trans cancel culture do seem to be experienced women in their 50s and 60s
Paul wrote: "Sandya wrote: "Message #8Congratulations on the publication! Seriously impressive, any publication outside of one's occupation...
I have to say that I think you have had bad luck with your sc..."
What years did you do your training? I did my PhD 1976-80 and was a postdoc in the 80s, when this judgmentalism was really, really bad. I think it has got better, but not by much. I have friends my age, full professors in biology, with active interests in music, who were told never to mention it in the lab. They lead double lives.
I had a friend who did a postdoc at Cold Spring Harbor and I visited several times in the late 80s. I didn't care for the atmosphere there. I met Barbara McClintock a couple of times and I have to say it, I wasn't impressed.
I was told by my second postdoc boss, here in the US, "You cannot succeed in science if you are a Renaissance Person"-actual quote. How narrow a vision! The chair of my tenure committee-a bitch if ever there was one- actually told me "You won't succeed as a scientist. You have too much art on your walls". I happen to collect mezzotints and engravings. I didn't get tenure. What a shallow, frivolous judgement by a person who lived in a house full of cat-shredded furniture and never read a book. How did she know I hadn't inherited the art? And if I had, what am I supposed to do-throw it away? Just to prove my commitment?
What really did me in is that they were both women and I would have hoped more supportive of a young woman with ambition. White women who were clueless about what I went through to get to tenure-like staving off an arranged marriage. I am Indian and I grew up in Southall, in the Indian community in London-NOT ONE PERSON from my cohort even went to university let alone attempted a PhD, 2 postdocs, tenure, and a research career. My contemporaries all had arranged marriages at 18. I had to have total commitment to get anywhere. My first postdoc boss actually told me, in front of another white woman whose first question to me was "Are you married?'-that it was time I was. Needless to say she is single. These people and their privilege-their conviction that's its OK to say anything that comes into their heads to someone like me- leave me speechless. They had absolutely no clue how offensive they were.
My first postdoc-in the Chambon Lab in Strasbourg- was an absolute hellhole-we were treated like slaves in a labour camp. I have no compunction about naming names. The system still rewards these assholes. The only good things about it were that my first grant proposal-a Royal Society postdoc fellowship-was funded and, through friends, I had the entrée to the Council of Europe, which was fascinating and could not happen today. I met many ambassadors and attended many diplomatic dinners and events as a matter of course. I made the mistake of mentioning it once to the American postdocs-they were completely baffled and clueless outside their areas of training. As they say in England, "a barbarian is a person who can only do one thing".
I had to rebuild my career from the ground up. Now I read editorials in SCIENCE magazine about the need to educate scientists in the humanities. How ironic. Um-there are lots of us out there already...... Believe me, it gives me ENORMOUS pleasure to know that I can publish an article about Jane Eyre AND hold patents on chromosome purification.
Paul wrote: "MEssage 83: Gladarvor wrote: ""I think, more than anything, I was lucky with my PhD advisors and committee members. At CSHL, there were certainly some monster bosses, but working at a "second-ti..."
My friend was in David Page's lab. I heard many horror stories. I really don't care any more about mentioning these people's names.
Yeah, that sounds precisely like my PhD advisor's experience with his postdoc, and his timing coincided with yours. My PhD was 1999-2004, so I do think that attitudes have changed quite a bit, but there are still legions of horror stories. My first postdoc advisor was an example of that. She wanted people to cry over their research projects and was happy to provide the impetus. I've also had on-line run-ins with other bosses who try to bully other people's students (one of whom wrote my boss asking for me to be fired). So, it's a mixed bag. If you work in the top-tier pressure cooker labs then there is the expectation of eat/breath/shit science, particularly with younger bosses trying to make tenure. CSHL neurobiology was hell, but for cancer research it was generally much more tranquil. I could give you the names of 10 immunologists that have actually driven students/postdocs to suicide, but I could give you the names of 50 who are mountain climbers/potters/poets/really horrendous guitar players and openly so.
Sandya wrote: "My friend was in David Page's lab
I actually have a colleague who worked with David Page for 10 years, but I have no idea whether she enjoyed her experience there. I doubt it
Paul wrote: "Yeah, that sounds precisely like my PhD advisor's experience with his postdoc, and his timing coincided with yours. My PhD was 1999-2004, so I do think that attitudes have changed quite a bit, but ..."I know I must sound like I have a huge chip on my shoulder-well I do-but I had to sacrifice so much. Neither my family nor the Indian community supported me. They just banged on endlessly about marrying me off. They still do. There were no other SINGLE Indian women my age doing anything like this. There were a couple of married women following their husbands around as a second fiddle. Thats it. As a friend says "Pioneers get slaughtered, settlers get rich".
For myself, I would like to experience life in all its richness. If I have the brains and application to do science and still have time for other interests, why not? If a person can only do one thing, why should I be measured by their standards? As for high pressure labs-well a lot of them are dysfunctional -how does that improve output and research quality? There is an element of wastefulness in the profession-how can you justify driving a highly qualified grad student or postdoc to suicide? Nations invest huge amounts of resources in training these people and then some crackpot PI just discards them?
To me, looking at history, there's an element of puritanism remaining, deriving from the quasi-monastic Oxbridge model. But-in my view, science is now a career, not a vocation, so it ought to have protections in place to help people live full lives and still do research.
Paul wrote: "Sandya wrote: "My friend was in David Page's lab
I actually have a colleague who worked with David Page for 10 years, but I have no idea whether she enjoyed her experience there. I doubt it"
Cripes! My GF survived it for 2 years and then left! The big sensation for me at CSHL (other than the meeting) was the murder of Jakov Gluzman in 1996! I was by then in my faculty position and several of my colleagues knew him. I remember scratching my head and thinking "how could this happen among scientists?". Then again they are just people. I read his papers as a postdoc.
Sandya comment 94"No, not at all, I don;t think you sound like you have a chip on your shoulder at all. I don't want to paint myself as defending academia, because that Ivory Tower is really not worth scaling. There are a few ex-professors amongst the contributors here and I don;t think any of us still in research are very enthusiastic about it. I do think that in certain ways it's gotten better, but in others far worse. My PhD advisor discovered myc and got tenure at 30 years old. Nowadays, you'd need to discover myc, p53, syk and have at least 3 network grants in hand just to get Asst Prof. Fuck that.
Jakov GluzmanOh wow, I don't remember even hearing about that at all,
Paul wrote: "Jakov GluzmanOh wow, I don't remember even hearing about that at all,"
I think they kept it quiet at the time but there's lots of juicy detail online! In fact-I just checked and Rita G the murderer was just released on compassionate grounds despite getting a life sentence. Ugh. It was a very sad story. https://www.lohud.com/story/news/loca...
Paul wrote: "Sandya comment 94"No, not at all, I don;t think you sound like you have a chip on your shoulder at all. I don't want to paint myself as defending academia, because that Ivory Tower is really not..."
My PhD supervisor discovered the nuclear pore, flew bombers in WW2, was a crack shot and an FRS! He had a full life and encouraged me to do the same.
I totally agree-Mick got tenure very young. I think the tenure process should be abolished. It seems to me that anyone with multiple large grants, papers, and patents should have job security-I had those things. Why on earth should a dozen total strangers be called in to decide this? My niece has had several promotions in the last year-all decided by the people she works with day to day. It's an idiotic system.
The sad thing is that I cannot in all honesty recommend research as a career, despite loving science and acknowledging the need for better science education generally-we see that now in the pandemic. My niece is just spreading her wings and that's what I told her. One of my nephews however, is going in that direction-however, I try to provide him with input I myself did not receive. At least this way he will know what he is getting into.
King Stakh's Wild Hunt by Uladzimir Karatkevich, translated from Belorussian by Mary Mintz.
This is the first book I’ve read from Glagoslav Publications, an indie British / Dutch house who specialise in Slavic literature, with quite a lot of Ukrainian and Belorussian writers.
This is a take on a classic myth in gothic style, like a sort of adult ‘Scooby-Doo’ story. A young folklorist bases himself at the castle of Marsh Firs in the Belorussian countryside while investigating a legend of a group of hunters on black horses with a pack of wild black dogs causing mayhem in the area. It’s set in the late 1890s, which provides plenty of interest, along with a quirky assortment of characters and a hint of the supernatural.
It was first published in 1964, and was considered Karatkevich’s greatest novel. With the gothic setting, there’s more than a whiff of Dracula about it. It was made into a film in 1980.
The Glagoslav catalogue is well worth a look, several other titles look very interesting.
Alan Rusbridger aka Proposed but Prevented Spender of the Scott Trust Monies remarks in a New Statesman column about audiobooks and it is still something i find un-appealling. Oddly i have never been a fan of the human voice via audio, i loathe radio and have listened to maybe 50 mins of radio in 30 years
BUT, i can see audiobooks as real lifeline to those losing sight, who were avid readers and the radio generation of people born between 1930 and 1950
Justine wrote 56: "Gpfr (37) wrote: "I'm the opposite - I like 'Anglo-Saxon'. I think I first heard it used by Charles de Gaulle, expressing a kind of semi-contempt. OK, rub out 'semi'. After that I started using it myself as a less self-congratulatory/ more ironic way of referring to 'our English-speaking civilization'. It makes me smile..
Pity someone didn't point out to the very ungrateful de Gaulle that, despite the Normans invading and conquering England and almost wiping out our hierarchy, we still ended up speaking English and not French. I could add a more recent, contentious comment but I am too polite.
Gladarvor (84) wrote: "Gpfr wrote (#70): "I think it's a great quiz! Well, between us we're halfway through - 12 answers have been found and it's only Tuesday morning 😃"I was just going to say that to inter too. And qu..."
I will be guided by the Will of the People! The quiz shall remain open. ;-)
AB76 wrote 75: "Message 72: re Suzanne MooreIts sad to see her comment about more censorship imposed on her from the left, rather than the right. The left wing silencing of different opinions has always concerne..."
Alwynne wrote: "AB76 (75) wrote: "Message 72: re Suzanne Moore
I am beginning to wonder what is happening at the Guardian in the last year or so. There was also the situation at the NYT i think where a pro-israel jewish journalist was bullied and intimidated because her opinions were more right wing.
You only have to experience the moderation in the Guardian to realise that their idea of free speech often meant as long as it agreed with the Guardian stance. Some of the vilification, insult and sheer nastiness which was allowed to stand on the majority of the political threads, compared with what was moderated, was often appalling.
giveusaclue wrote: "Justine wrote 56: "Gpfr (37) wrote: "I'm the opposite - I like 'Anglo-Saxon'. I think I first heard it used by Charles de Gaulle, expressing a kind of semi-contempt. OK, rub out 'semi'. After tha..."
i liked the way De Gaulle used it, as an englishman with a slightly cynical view of anglo-saxon culture
Julian Jacksons huge book about the great General is one of my most anticipated reads for 2021 (covid permitting)
giveusaclue wrote: "AB76 wrote 75: "Message 72: re Suzanne MooreIts sad to see her comment about more censorship imposed on her from the left, rather than the right. The left wing silencing of different opinions has..."
hear hear! the political threads were a sewage basin of contempt and loathing, with so much bile seeming to escape the censors but numerous sensible posts by me never got published.
i am thoroughly fed up with a paper i have read for 28 years right now, i think the online "USA facing creep" as i call it in the Guardian message is a problem here too, where the "wokery" is militant and intolerant
giveusaclue wrote: "[...] we still ended up speaking English and not French"Not unlike Mr. Jourdain, who did prose unbeknownst to him, the English speak French without knowing it. Here's a short list of examples snatched from the 'Anglo-Norman' entry in Wikipedia:
English < Norman = French
cabbage < caboche = chou, caboche
candle < caundèle = chandelle
castle < caste(-l) = château
cauldron < caudron = chaudron
causeway < cauchie = chaussée
catch < cachi = chasser
cattle < *cate(-l) = cheptel (Old French chetel)
fork < fouorque = fourche
garden < gardin = jardin
kennel < kenil = chenil (Vulgar Latin *canile)
wicket < viquet = guichet
plank < planque = planche, planque
pocket < pouquette = poche
Slawkenbergius wrote: "giveusaclue wrote: "[...] we still ended up speaking English and not French"Not unlike Mr. Jourdain, who did prose unbeknownst to him, the English speak French without knowing it. Here's a short ..."
Ha, but our French doesn't sound anything like their French.
I have now finished reading Murder on the Rue Dumas
Not quite is good as the first one but very enjoyable.
The book starts with a soirée given by an outgoing doyen of the Theology Dept at Aix University. He is a nasty piece of work and loves to promise positions to people then reneging on his promise. He does that publicly at the soirée and is later found murdered by two student who break into his office to find who has been awared a research post. The story involves blackmail and the sale of historic artifacts. The on off love affair between Verlaque and Bonnet comes along nicely and the descriptions of food and wine in both Italy and France add a nice note.
giveusaclue wrote: "Ha, but our French doesn't sound anything like their French."Believe it or not that's what the Québécois frequently say.
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