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Spoken French, coins

From:Matt M. <matt_mcl@...>
Date:Friday, December 21, 2001, 14:00
> >i'm quite sure it's because of spoken french where > >"dirty" is "paprop" and "healthy" is "pamalad" as in "mwa > >shüpaprop me shüpamalad nõpü" "i'm no clean but no sick > >either". > > "Spoken French"? It looks like a perfect creole! Where is it "spoken"?
I sounded it out, then realized that it sounds exactly like fluent Québécois! Of course, we'd actually spell it, "Moi, j'suis pas propre mais j'suis pas malade non plus" (or "Moé chu pas propre mais chu pas malade non pus" if you are Michel Tremblay). As for Canadian coins, we have more or less the same distinction as Americans. I found a penny, it's worth one cent. I found a nickel, it's worth five cents. I found a dime, it's worth ten cents. A quarter is worth twenty-five cents. A loonie is worth a dollar. A twonie is worth two bucks. In French, there aren't names for all the coins as in English, and the "sou" and "cenne" factions are fighting a battle to the death over how to say $0.01 (well, 0,01$). A penny is un cenne noir, qui vaut un cenne. Other than that, we say un cinq-cennes, un dix-cennes, un vingt-cinq cennes (as-tu des vingt-cinq cennes? Do you have any quarters?) Some people call a loonie "un huard", but more call it "un loonie" and more still call it just "une piasse" (a buck) or "un dollar", with twonies being likewise "des deux-piasses" or "des deux-dollars".

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John Cowan <jcowan@...>