Refraction

I think I can finally remember the meaning of the French phrase “à l’insu de” (though more commonly “à notre insu, à mon insu”)

in – not; su – PP of savoir, to know => insu – not known

“à mon insu” – “without my knowing, unbeknowst to me”

See Part I here.

My father, in his infinite wisdom:
“You know, the character you want in a boyfriend is a bit like mine. You’re kind of like Mom, and if the both of you were like that, the marriage wouldn’t last long.”

Thanks for jumping directly to marriage, Dad!

(Also, for a long time, one of my great fears has been turning out like my mother. I don’t know how like her I actually am, given his comments….)

No matter which political party forms the Canadian
government during your Administration, Canada will remain one
of our staunchest and most like-minded of allies, our largest
trading and energy partner, and our most reliable neighbor
and friend.

Aw, guys, you shouldn’t have.

http://213.251.145.96/cable/2009/01/09OTTAWA64.html

Dear Google,

I understand times have been getting harder for you recently, what with these upstart social networking sites and search competitors lately. I’ve been a big fan of you guys for a long time. However, what made you think that instant previews on search pages were a good idea? And that it would be even better if people couldn’t disable this feature?

I won’t be boycotting Google anytime soon, but I’m now certainly open to using other search engines.

Yours,
Cat

In addition to all the usual stuff about weather, health, and security, there’s this line:
Eviter les remarques sur l’accent québécois.

XD

It blows my mind that @riefuofficial follows @viennateng! Unbelievable!

(And I only knew this because I follow @loveyanen!)

Phoenix makes me pretty happy. Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix sounds like a happy album, but reveals itself to be a little more somber underneath (just look at the lyrics). That doesn’t stop me from adoring this album to bits. I can’t believe I hadn’t heard of them before last fall.

“so sentimental, not sentimental, no…”

Also terribly excited to be seeing them live in September! My entertainment budget has shifted to concerts from travel, clearly.

Okay, so in France everyone seems to use deezer.comto listen to music on their computers (it’s a free streaming radio, you can find a ton of stuff on there).

So I have “Bad Romance” stuck in my head, strangely enough, and do a search for it…. the second result is a remix of The Last Unicorn‘s theme song by an artist called “Bad Romance.”

I guess you really can remix everything.

Stumbled onto Wikipedia’s article on perronismes, which reminds me of English mixed metaphors.

Never quite having fully grasped what a mixed metaphor was (and being unable to come up with them on demand), I found the examples presented here interesting. Perhaps they’re easier to see when it’s not your native language? Plus—it’s always a joy when such things can be translated correctly, with the right amount of awkwardness.

“Atteindre la lumière au fond du baril”
“To reach the light at the bottom of the barrel”

“La forêt vierge est une forêt où la main de l’homme n’a jamais mis le pied. ”
“Virgin forest is a forest where the hand of man has never set foot.”

One of the hardest things for me to keep straight in French is the difference between ‘tu’ and ‘vous’. I mean, obviously I know the difference, but I haven’t internalized it… it often happens that I start a sentence with ‘vous’ and switch to ‘tu’ halfway through. I figure I get a semi-free pass as a foreigner, though.

Anyway, this is only relevant because I was in Munich recently, wandering around Marienplatz. It’s right by the city centre: tons of shopping to do, quite touristy overall. One of these survey people (I think) came up to me and asked, “Sprichst du Deutsch?” I muttered “Nein” and kept walking, but the first thing that popped into my head was “He just tutoie-d ¹Fr. tutoyer, to use “tu” with someone me! He doesn’t even know me!”

So maybe the French are getting to me a little.

ETA: I was talking to the Franco-German student at work and he explained to me that people in Germany systematically tutoient people if they appear to be less than 18, which is not necessarily the case in France. Hum. I don’t think I look that young.