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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