26 November 2007

French __________

• French cut beans: haricots verts
Yep, just green beans.
• French door: porte-fenêtre
Window door. Makes sense.
• French dressing: sauce salade
Salad sauce. Makes sense. It's also absolutely nothing like that gloopy orange stuff. French dressing is usually a mustard-based vinaigrette.
• French fries: les frites
"Frieds," short for fried potatoes. In America they evolved skinnier than they are in France though.
• French toast: pain perdu
Lost bread? OK.
• Pardon my French!: Pardonnez-moi l'expression!
Forgive the expression. Also makes sense.
• French kiss: un patin
That also means "skate," so I'm curious about where this came from.
• French bread: baguette
A loaf. French bread found in America isn't completely like real French bread though.

In conclusion, most things we call French aren't really French.

4 comments:

Jakob said...

Nice!! This more than answers my question about french toast:)

Kathleen said...

What about the hairstyles, French twist and French braid?
Do the French turn the tables and call anything "American" or "British" without much logical justification?

Anonymous said...

How long are you going to be in France? I'm going to Spain next semester...so maybe we could hook up some weekend in there?...

Anonymous said...

oh..and in case you don't know who that was..it was 10^6.