Do You Feel Lucky?

(and feel free to comment! My older posts are certainly no less relevant to the burning concerns of the day.)

Sunday, November 05, 2006

My Favorite Word In french

It isn't merde! It's oiseau.

That means bird. Is not oiseau so much more beautiful than bird? Le oiseau, say sont day creme de la soundyness.

french is such a beautiful language. You see how I take pains to decapitalize the "f" in "french"? This is out of consideration for their own native habits. The French themselves always lower-case the name of their language. When speaking of the people, it is "les Français." But when speaking of the language, it is "le français." This is a mark of the deep humility with which the French people regard their language, which they prize dearly above all others. They take great pains to protect the language from corrupting influences such as time, and humans. They even have a governmental agency, Les Langues D'Or, loosley translated as "The Federated Alliance of Eternal Linguistic Purity."

Their government charter, the number and the identities of their operatives, the scope of their influence, and even their origin are all shrouded in mystery. But one thing I can tell you is that they take their language very seriously. These folks will not tolerate whatever the french equivalent of a split infinitive is, I can guarantee you that.

But hark! Listen to the beautiful sound of the oiseau. Can you blame them, for wanting to protect that?

1 comment:

Cassie said...

You may think it's a beautiful word, but I'm telling you -- they're out there. Earlier this morning there were hundreds, now there's only a dozen or so. Every once in a while one will fly off, or two or three, to some secret destination. I don't know what they're doing, but they're awfully well organized.