So that’s the end of my year in France.
I’m back in New Jersey now, home for two and a half weeks before I leave for California to start grad school in the cognitive science department at UC San Diego. Marseille was a good year – I learned a lot, about French and about research; I met some very cool people that I hope will skype me in the future (hint, hint); I experienced Flutag, and the World Series of both Pétanque and Beach Volleyball. I ate tons of amazingly delicious bread and cheese. I had wonderful visits from my parents, and Josh, and Cindy and Andrew, and Sara, Rosanne, and Omar, and Aaron.
Waiting for the boule to be thrown at the World Cup of Pétanque
Il tire la boule.
As a fitting wrap-up, a fun language fact. In English, we’ve got all these expressions of “French” something – most of which aren’t French anything in France:
- French toast = pain perdu (lost bread)
Baguettes get stale and lose their incredibly delicious squishiness after at most an hour of sitting around. So what to do with yesterday’s rock-solid baguette, as its cheese-carrying powers are long-since lost to the world? Answer: fry it in egg and enjoy!
- French fries = pommes frites (fried potatoes)
Rather self-explanatory. Apparently, the “French” in the English phrase refers to cooking something “in the French manner”, namely deep-frying. I’m thinking there should be more butter and garlic on fries, though, if we’re talking French style of cooking. - French horn = cor (horn)
An English horn is still called cor anglais, though it is neither English nor a horn. Wikipedia informs me the name is likely a corruption, either of anglé meaning angled or curved or engelisches, from old German, meaning “angelic” and not “English”. - French kissing = rouler la pelle (roll the shovel)
Every single French person to whom I mentioned this expression couldn’t stop laughing about it. So much for French romance… - Pardon my French = ?
Apparently the concept of excusing oneself before cursing doesn’t exist in France. Certainly the frequency with which people yell putain! supports this. - Encore! = une autre (one more)
Bizarrely enough, even though we stole this word from French, after a concert everyone chants “une-autre! une-autre!”. Also, I never saw anyone throwing gloves onto (or off from) the stage. Granted, I didn’t go to any operas.
So that’s that. I’d like to try to keep this blog going, maybe turning it into a forum for “interesting doings in the world of cognitive science and beyond”, which is what it was originally intended. Any suggestions of a format or topics to write about or anything at all are welcomed. With that, adieu, thanks for reading, come back soon, and remember, cogsci is pretty cool.
Storming The Brain 
Nice article! I laughed out loud when you mentioned the “Putain”. Actually, in Marseille, it’s “Putaing” WITH the accent emphasising on the “aing” at the end.
Pity you didn’t talk about football. In Marseille, it’s the #1 religion!
:-)
Great you had fun there!
Karl
Great post, and nice blog by the way. Looking forward to reading about your life in SD.
PS: Can’t believe you actually took 19 photos between the two you’re showing. My goodness you must love Pétanque.
Yup you should keep it going for a while, you know a space for rapid nostalgia and quick memories about things you did not have the chance to write about when you were here :)
I posted a very similar post on my blog a while ago but in Arabic by the way ;)
I will miss your quick-wittedness around, Rachel!
By the way, can I interest you in some pictures of yourself in a flowery summerdress, holding a small and shiny metal sphere, readying yourself to attack during a breath-taking and tense concours de petanque that you ended up winning? Such pictures I just discovered on my phone…
Remember when we were sitting in Ruth Simmons’s back yard and you were talking about whether you should go to this random place in the south of France you had no idea whether would be worth your time, or to take some opportunity to do stuff you felt really comfortable doing in Pittsburgh or Philadelphia or somewhere in that sphere? Yes, I remember that conversation. Refer to Frost’s “The Road Not Taken.”
And enjoy San Diego… I’m dropping my brother there for his first day of college in 2 weeks :-)
– Kam –
Looks like great weather for the petanque world series. I hope it continues in San Diego.
A few more items for your list; perhaps you could investigate the “Frenchness” of these:
– French cuff = a dress shirt that uses cuff links instead of buttons.
– French leave = departing from an event or location without notice to anyone. In the armed forces, this might be called AWOL.
– French door = door(s) with many small panes of glass, frequently used between two interior rooms of a building
– French dressing = gooey stuff you can put on your salad, bearing no resemblance to anything a French cook would use.
– French bean = a variety of green bean, or green beans cut in a certain way.
And a few that I never heard of, but are in my dictionary:
– French heel (high-heels?)
– French telephone (??)
– French chalk (tailor’s chalk?)
– French chop (a meat chop trimmed a certain way?)