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Monday, 18 February 2008 |
Dear Ms Neame,
I enjoyed the new Barry Cornell, and would like to add a
category of ex-pats many of us find offensive. I refer to those
people who, according to Henry Higgins in ‘My Fair Lady’,
“should be taken out and hung, For the cold-blooded murder
of the English tongue.”
As an example, those who, in the name of Political
Correctness, say or write phrases such as: “Anyone (singular)
who has (singular) ever worn a knotted handkerchief on their
(plural) head...”
And, by the way, what’s wrong with Stanley as a name?
Both my father and my father-in-law were thus named, and as
far as I know they never did France any harm – except for my
father digging holes in the Somme. Now if Mr Cornell would
care to pick on Kylie or Shane, I’d be right behind him.
Bob Seager, Poitou-Charentes
Ian Dick, Midi-Pyrénées, adds:
The answer to Barry Cornell’s misanthropic magniloquence is
simple: those who mind, don’t matter, and those who matter
don’t mind!
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Monday, 18 February 2008 |
Dear Editor,
Your December page about French Jewry was very interesting
and informative. However, Jewish leader Joël Mergui is
quoted as saying that the Consistory fights anti-Semitism
“through a campaign of education against racism and anti-
Zionism”. We must not let him get away with that!
Of course, all half-decent members of the human race
oppose racism, including anti-Semitism, in any shape or
form.
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Monday, 18 February 2008 |
Dear Editor,
I feel I must respond to your correspondent in last month’s
FN who finds ‘snuck’ an unfortunate word.
The fact a word is not in a dictionary is no excuse for not
using it. Indeed, if new words were not incorporated into the
dictionary our language would be the poorer.
I dedicate the part of my life not owned by French News
to ensuring that ‘gruntled’ and ‘couth’ will one day be
considered proper words to express the positive of their
negative partners. Apart from anything else, they are very
satisfactory words.
Robin Hicks, Languedoc-Roussillon correspondent
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Monday, 18 February 2008 |
Dear Editor,
Since an interim government cannot sign treaties under
Belgian law or make any other binding commitments, surely
this scuppers all the nonsense over the new EU constitution?
Dr Bernard Juby, Pays de la Loire
Robert Harneis replies:
You have a point but an exception is being made and the
treaty is to be ratified “by parliament by the summer”. A
spokesman for the Belgian branch of the anti-free market
group Attac has, with others, commented: “The legality of a
ratification, in this way, will be very much open to challenge,
bearing in mind the present political situation (in Belgium),
as was the signature of the treaty.”
The Russians are so irritated at constant lectures about
democracy by those who do not always practise it perfectly
themselves, that they are opening a think-tank in the West, the
Institute for Democracy and Cooperation, with a branch in
Paris to study the matter. Perhaps you should send them a
complaint?
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Monday, 18 February 2008 |
I have often referred to Americans in
France as, not expats, but
“immigrants”; after all, legally
speaking, we have more in common
with new arrivals from Morocco than
from the UK.
I had this thought again this month
reading a story about a couple from
Kyrgyzstan struggling to take root here.
The story talked about how they too
have had to learn about the Sécu and
the code de la route.
But the story ended with the wife
declaring proudly that France is their
country now and that they would never
go back—and, happy as we are here,
this is where I stopped identifying.
I think many Americans here end up
in some kind of limbo, between
countries, between cultures, never
completely here, nor any longer
completely there. It’s not like we have
moved abroad to escape war, poverty, or
illiteracy. (One does hear references to
the Bush refugees, but I think this is an
urban legend.) Most of us expend a
great deal of effort—and money—to
preserve some kind of legal and
financial identity in both places and
even more money trying to maintain the
“bond” with those we left behind.
But sometimes it’s like being stuck
in the transporter in an old Star Trek
episode. “Beam me up, Scotty!” “I’m
trying, Cap’n but I dinna have enough
power!”
This sense of limbo was heightened
this year for me by three incidents, two
mildly stinging, and the third,
permanently painful.
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