Can’t resist the French reference in this NYT opinion piece, Medvedev. Mehd-V(y)EHD-yehf. Whatever, (hat tip to Language Hat) that parallels the Beijing Sounds discussion on English’s Beizzhing. Revealing quote:
One of the ways we compensate for the difficulty of foreign names is by adopting our own way of saying them. I once worked with an editor who spoke pretty good French, but used only the feminine article “la,” never “le.” Why, I finally asked? “Oh, it sounds SO much more French that way,” he drawled.
Vindication for Beizzhing: French is the universal “foreign” accent.
Now I know what you Bay-Jing purists (e.g. Graham, who has a Bay-Jing post at the Linguism blog) are gonna say: “But Bay-Jing is easy for native English speakers! Why can’t we just insist on it?”
That misses the point. Bay-Jing is easy, too easy. Like “la” in French, it just doesn’t sound foreign enough!
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Comments 4
There’s something confusing about this:
1. ‘only the feminine article “la,” never “le.”…it sounds SO much more French’
2. “Like “la” in French, it just doesn’t sound foreign enough!”
I don’t know if the guy was quoted wrong, or what, but since we have “la” in Spanish, Italian, etc., “le” should definitely sound more French (and I agree). But he said he always uses “la” because it sounds more French.
Posted 14 Mar 2008 at 9:13 pm ¶I don’t think he was saying that ‘la’ is more French than Spanish, I think the point is it is more Frenchy compared to ‘le’. Le does appear in Italian (feminine plural).
Posted 15 Mar 2008 at 12:59 pm ¶OK, I was apparently even MORE confused than mark and Randy. I’d initially misread the whole thing — that he was using “le” instead of “la” — I had it flipped. Hence my claim:
Now that I see I dyslexicized it I have to agree with Randy: I don’t know what he’s saying. Unless, maybe, he’s agreeing with you, mark, in thinking that “la” sounds more French. But that doesn’t work for my prejudices.
Oh well. Same central point: still about wanting to “sound foreign” by “sounding French” — whatever the individual thinks “sounding French” actually sounds like.
Posted 15 Mar 2008 at 2:29 pm ¶This is good enough!
Posted 18 Mar 2008 at 6:23 am ¶NIce work!
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