Reality Check by Dave Whamond for January 21, 2025

Mon dieu!

He can also write in “curse”-ive.

Ha. Little pitchers have big ears.

That’s exactly how it happens!

Once, my preschool aged daughter was getting on my wife’s last nerve, and she snapped and yelled her name and said “yer pi$$’n me off!” After a stern discussion about our pact on NOT doing that, I knew somehow I’d be the one getting bit by it. Sure enough, I picked her up at preschool, and we were standing and talking to the two administrators, and I looked at my daughter and said: “well, we have to get home”… and she said with the most serious look a kid could provide… “why, is mom gonna be pi$$’d off?”

I looked at the two administrators and just said… “that’s all on her mother… you should mention it to her!”

Threw her right under the bus!

that’s %#$&@ funny!

Do the French say “Pardonnez mon anglais”?

Sacre fu! What he say?

I had a friend who attended a private Jesuit high school. The first thing he learned in Latin class was how to say “Go to Hell.”

“Oh my cow!”

Heard the origin of “Excuse my French.” It had something to do with the English court

… Pardonne moi!

I went to high school in a predominantly Italian neighbourhood. I learned several bad words in Italian. Portuguese, Maltese and Greek.

remember it’s @ before # except after $

French fries

French dip au jus

French Broad river

French onion soup

Victor French

Je suis frois.

This may get long, and there’s a History lesson included, so, you were forewarned!

All of those dirty little four-letter words? They ain’t French! They’re Old English/Ancient Anglo-Saxon. Starting around 1066, The French invaded England on a number of occasions, and, being the conquerors, instituted their language as the primary language of the country. (Hence the many, many French words borrowed by the English language.) All of the Gentry spoke it, but commoners, being poor, uneducated vassals, generally stuck to their native tongue. I mean, how often would a peasant see a titled noble, much less be allowed to speak to them? Anyway, the end result was that the commoners speech was considered vulgar (which, btw just means “common”. The pejorative sense was added later.) and were not to be spoken in “polite” company. Most of them aren’t, technically speaking, curse words, only those with religious connotations. At the end of the day, any time you use a polite euphemism for a “dirty” word, you’re probably using the Latinate equivalent to the ancient, Germanic-based words of our English ancestors. (Well, mine, anyway…)

Ahhh yes, French – a “Romance” language …!

( fornication sous relation charnelle )

Words in French tickle ‘er fancy.

Kids are so impressionable!

Wow, I guess I do know some French ! ;-)

In high school French class we had a kid from Quebec who could speak fluent French. He was in the class to learn how to write it. He taught us some swear words in French, although nothing worse than R rated… He also taught us a phrase that he claimed was an everyday diss at police – it translated to “You are a green cow”…

I’m shocked a kid that age would use the word … er is it Klingon?

Maybe one third of English is French – most of the words I can’t translate directly from my German into English, and quite some of those that made it from French to German, too.

Funny!