French TV

[topr8]

have been watching season 1 of the cop show Spiral on DVD,

i've really enjoyed it, it is excellent - and it's helping my weak french language a bit too ... although i do need the subtitles!

can any of the French speaking members recommend anything else from French TV? especially cop, thriller or SciFi/Futuristic ... i'd try comedy too.

[lucy24]

I have been raised, way back when, to not speak while having dinner unless you are asked a direct question or asked to participate

Hm, that sounds like something you were taught as a child and your parents forgot to say that it doesn't apply to grownups. Otherwise where are those direct questions, or requests to participate, coming from?

[henry0]

grownup is a level one reaches when on his/her own is able to sort out which parents' rules still apply as an imprint of a lasting good basic education.

But we are digressing from the original topic.

[Shaddows]

English food names.

Post 1066, peasants ate pig, cow, deer. Landowners (who were Norman-installed or dead) ate pork, beef or venison.

Peasants didn't get much meat either way, so the vast majority of meat consumed, was consumed in French.

French was the aritocratic lingua franca of the area of land that shall be called, for the sake of simplicity, modern England and France. This persisted for centuries, beyond even the 100 years war which ended in the mid-15C.

Hence, (ludicrously over-simplified for the current audience of this thread, apologies) posh English tends towards French, as legal and technical tends toward Latin, and medical tends to ancient Greek.

Hmmm, I think I'll stop there before I embarass myself by making a glaring mistake.

[topr8]

posh English tends towards French

as a child i had plenty of casseroles

only as an adult did i realise it was the same as stew!

[Leosghost]

"casseroles" plural, "casserole" singular ( it is actually the word for a "saucepan" usually with a handle on each side ) can also mean ( nearest translations , depends on context )"scandalous things" or "skeletons in closets"( bad things from the person's past which encumber them )..or "old cars or vans*"...:-)

*panel trucks... for the "cousins"

[lucy24]

Peasants didn't get much meat either way, so the vast majority of meat consumed, was consumed in French.

... which didn't prevent the word for "food" (as in "meat and drink") changing over to mean "animal flesh".

Europeans in general must have eaten enormous amounts of meat compared to the rest of the planet.* How else could the word "fast" be interpeted-- with a straight face-- as abstaining from eggs and red meat?

only as an adult did i realise it was the same as stew!

I read a children's book where the narrator's mother suddenly started inflicting "O'Groton" on the family. Finally the narrator sees it in print and is very embarrasssed at her mistake. But she doesn't like it any better with French spelling.


* Except, oops, the latitudes where nothing grows.

[lawman]

Leosghost = only member here old enough to remember panel trucks. ;)