I really haven’t found this phenomenon used so extensively with any other language than French. Do people actually think it’s so chic, or that others will be so impressed, when they sprinkle in a word of French into their blog, their newspaper article, or their autobiography? Probably so! Otherwise, I see no other logical reason for them to do it!

Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for artistic expression and sometimes it’s imperative in a novel, song, or poem, but I see no value in placing a French word in every third sentence just for the hell of it, or for the reasons I’ve stated above! They don’t seem to take into consideration that if I’m annoyed and I speak French, how annoyed would people be who do not!

I had another blog at one point (which is on hiatus), but I wrote either my entire post in French or in English. I didn’t smatter a word of English here or there in my French articles, or vice-versa! It just drives me up a wall when people do that! I’m convinced (until proven otherwise) that the majority of people who are guilty of this ridiculous habit are people who actually do not have command of the language, but want others to believe they do.

If you go through my posts, you will find that the few times I’ve used a French word or expression, I have put the English translation in parenthesis, or else the French word is a word that you can find in an English dictionary, such as arrondissement, charcuterie, vis-à-vis, etc. I find so many anglophone blogs about France in violation of this crime that I’ve stopped reading them! (Lol, yes I can be dramatic at times!) A pity really, since some of them have interesting things to say; but they have a tendency of doing this constantly that it becomes too damn tedious and annoying to read!!!

When I was in Québec, I was very impressed with the fact that everything is written in French without so much as a smidgen of English cropping up here or there. If only these English speaking people who are guilty of this ridiculous habit could take the Québécois as an example, they may find that they would get a lot more readership!!!

Photo Credits: Flickr

Post from: The Paris Traveler