CHAT: Gay Normand and Albion (was: RE: CHAT: the gay Canadian (was: "have a nice day")

Christophe:
> At 23:41 03/03/00 -0000, you wrote:
> >
> >"Gay French" doesn't sound good. Where are you from? For example,
> >"Christophe, the gay Burgundian" sounds splendid, and "Christophe, the
> >gay Parisian" also has some charm. Christophe, the gay, of Aquitaine.
> >Like all those French kings -- Charles the Bald, and so on. Christophe
> >le Grand, Sire des Langues Fantastique. Excuse me while my fancy wanders....
> >
>
> Wow! I like the last one :))) .
I think you courteously desisted from correcting it to _Fantastiques_.

> And about my origin, I'm primarily from Normandy. So I guess "Christophe
> the gay Normand" would fit. But I also live in the suburbs of Paris, and my
> origins are from Belgium to Corsica, with a lot of Normandy and a bit of
> Paris. Just choose! :)
I do like "the Gay Normand". "the gay Norman" would be normaler, English,
but in my teenage years "Norman" was a homophobic insult (simply because
at the time there was a scandal involving a homosexual of that name).

Whether it's "The Gay Normand" or "The Gay Corsican", either way it's
probably the title of some or other Donizetti opera.

> >Anyway, I must have got my francophone conlangers confused, thinking our
> >gay francophone chum and our Canadian francophone chum were one and the
> >same.
> >
> >--And the Gay, of Albion.
> >
>
> "la perfide Albion" Where does this expression come from already?
God knows when the French first thought England perfidious. There has been
mutual animosity between our countries for the better part of a thousand
years, and it remains alive and well (and though I am these twenty years
past an ardent ?parisophile/?parigiophile/?lutetiophile, I confess myself
not wholly immune from participating in those less gallophiliacal sentiments
in certain respects). [BTW, given my recent antiscandinavian rant, it may be
wondered exactly which country, if any, it is about which I have no grouches.
Answer: Holland. Also Australia & New Zealand. Possibly also Costa Rica...]

"Albion" is a name for Britain as a geographical entity -- a land rather
than a nation. I think its etymology is unknown, though connections have been
drawn with Alp, mountain, and Alb- white. A snatch of my verse:

   Coming back from France I always get
   A slightly embarrassed thrill to look upon
   The high white cliffs of Albion.

One reason I like "Albion" is that it sidesteps the Britain/England distinction.
Another is that unlike "Britain" & "England" it is not
etymologically an ethnonym. Yet another is that it simultaneously
evokes the white cliffs of Dover on the one hand (because of Alp+Alb-),
and on the other hand "Albany", an old name for Scotland (again as a region
rather than a nation), so it covers the land from north to south.

--And.