The Death of French, 100 Words at a Time

The Slightly Thicker Edge of the Wedge

November 29, 2017By David JaggardC'est Ironique!
Death of French language, people and baby
Is this kid laughing? Or crying for his mother tongue?

As I seem never to tire of pointing out, English business names, most of them terrible, are becoming more and more common in France every day. I’ve written some two dozen articles lamenting this trend and still, for some reason, it continues unchecked. Then again, nobody heeded my warning when I predicted climate change back in July 1984 (my exact words: “Isn’t it getting hot around here?”), so I guess I shouldn’t be surprised.

But now we’re seeing something different, and even more alarming: English words slipped into phrases where they’re totally unnecessary.

Consider these examples:

Death of French language, fast good and coréen
It’s a restaurant on Rue Montmartre. “Coréen” means “Korean.” Why the mix? I hope their ingredients aren’t as adulterated as their French.
Death of French language, good food, good mood
I’m not surprised about the use of “food” in the brand name, or the use of English for the slogan. But why “faits maison & healthy” (literally, “homemade and sain”)?
Death of French language, Oh! my mag
Yes, it is a French magazine. The title used to be “As You Like,” but, apparently figuring that that was not idiotic enough, the editors changed it to a different (worse) English phrase and then decided to use English for the “teasers” as well.

I predict that over the next 50 years, adopting English words will become so fashionable among Francophones that they will no longer use any original French words at all. Meanwhile, it will become increasingly popular among Anglophones to adopt French expressions, both real (savoir-faire, tour de force, etc.) and imagined (nom de plume, double entendre, par-tay).

So by 2067, the two languages will have completely swapped vocabularies and the trend will die out. Then, about 10 years later, it will once again become fashionable among Francophones to adopt English words…

Favorite

An album of David Jaggard’s comic compositions is now available for streaming on Spotify and Apple Music, for purchase (whole or track by track) on iTunes and Amazon, and on every other music downloading service in the known universe, under the title “Totally Unrelated.”

Note to readers: David Jaggard’s e-book Quorum of One: Satire 1998-2011 is available from Amazon as well as iTunes, iBookstore, Nook, Reader Store, Kobo, Copia and many other distributors.

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