Re: 2024 c.s.i.p.g.action Holiday Give-Away Day #00000008

On Mon, 09 Dec 2024 08:33:10 -0600, Zaghadka <zaghadka@hotmail.com>
wrote:

I can't abide the French. They are a silly people who taunt English
Ca-nig-its.

I'm reminded of a brief essay (reputedly) by Neil Gaiman on that very
topic:

     "I have very mixed feelings about Americans disliking the
      French. I'm English, after all. We have a special relationship
      with the French: we are in awe of their sophistication, their
      cuisine and their wines, we think their women are beautiful,
      we like them as individuals, we badly want to go and live in
      their country when we retire, while at the same time we are
      deeply suspicious of them. It's like having people living
      next door to you who may be snappier dressers and better
      cooks, but who, after all, borrowed the lawn mower sometime
      in the thirteenth century and never gave it back.

     "Anyway, the English dislike the French. We're really good at
      it. We've been doing it ever since we got up one day and
      realised that the Norman Conquerors were now, like it or
      not, Us, and weren't conquering French people any more. We
      feel, frankly, that if anyone's going to dislike the French,
      it's going to be us. On the whole we manifest our dislike for
      them by drinking their wines, buying up their cigarettes,
      and, despite the fact that all English people can naturally
      roll their Rs and speak perfect French, declining to do so,
      and when forced by circumstances to speak French the English
      do it with an English accent on purpose.
    
     "These are tactics we've worked out over the course of
      hundreds of years, and if carried on long enough, they
      will bring France to its knees. I'm English. I know these
      things.
    
     "Changing the name french fries to freedom fries, on the
      other hand, will just make them laugh at you. "