[BITList] Franglais

[Tom Gardiner]

Salaams,

Fred's reference to Brits entering a country and not bothering to learn day to day speech rings a a bell .
It was the same in Canada prior to my sojourn there . 
Expecting Quebecois (Quebeckers) to speak English to them was a forlorn hope.
However once one tried  speaking French it was a different story 
( the only hard liners were les seperaatists )
The government  courses taught correct French language  for immegrants .
Speaking correct French to people used to patois was no better than speaking perfect English or Swahili .
The Quebec government eventually had a purge on local language to try and get away from
"Fixee mon muffleur "  and other Franglais 
I spoke my version of French on the factory floor every day .
But trying to run tech courses in French was a cause for hilarity
endiong up relying on a repeat of my words by a foreman .

Oddly enough though, when a daughter of ours invited the  French parents of a friend 
to a BBQ here in Oz .I found , after 20 mins of scrambling ,the vocabularly came back
and I could chat for 3 hours on a variety of topics.

One thing I found was that any Quebecker travelling to France , regardless of academic distinction
was treated like "merde"  Some only made their holiday worthwhile by spending time  in England

One of the big complaints by Poms in Oz is the pegging of UK pensions.
The Gopvernment here accept the token and make up the balance .
With the financial Hoo Haa  age pensioners are to get 35 Dollars a week increase and a sweetener of $1400 .
As a pensioner couple we will see $26 a week and ( hopefully ) $ 2100.

Fred ,What happened to Semaine  for week and Moin for month .

Tom in Gympie