Re: CHAT: A pretty bad language joke :]

En réponse à Oskar Gudlaugsson <hr_oskar@...>:

>
> Ah, what an excellent opportunity to field my frustrations with Paris ;)
> I
> remember going to a restaurant (brasserie) with an Australian friend.
> He
> noticed a "hamburger" on the menu, and ordered it. When it came, there
> was a
> single meat slice with an egg on top (a "hamburger"), plus salad and
> stuff,
> plus French bread separate (intended as hamburger bread?); I laughed
> big-time when I saw that plate come. He was very angry, and asked me to
> have
> a word with the waiter (as I spoke French, but not him). So when I made
> a
> polite suggestion to the waiter that the Australian would like his
> hamburger
> served with the proper bread and salad inside, he just snapped back,
> in
> passing: "C'est pas le MacDo ici, hein!" Jeez. The poor Australian was
> just
> boiling mad, and hardly even ate his 40-50-something-franc meal; we left
> he
> place in extreme frustration.
>
Well, in this case I would be more on the side of the waiter here (though my
reaction would have been more polite :) ). In France, if you want to eat an
American-style hamburger, go to the McDonalds or Quick or look-alike. Anywhere
else (even a simple brasserie), asking for a hamburger of American style is
considered extremely rude, because it means you compare their cooking with
MacDo's (considered extremely bad in France, BTW. Doesn't prevent lots of people
to go there). In French restaurants and brasseries, even if you find the term
"hamburger" in the menu, be sure it won't be what you expect. In French the word
is used to qualify a special kind of meat (at least in menus). Anyway, I don't
think in such a place they had the bread needed to make the hamburger you were
expecting: it's not a kind of bread you find easily in France. The French bread
was just there because in France you eat bread at every meal. Anyway, you should
have expected it from the price that it couldn't be a normal hamburger.

Finally, one more piece of advice, which explains also the reaction of the
waiter: in France it's considered very rude to ask to be served differently than
the way you were served (unless of course it's too cold or the meat is not
cooked the way you asked before), and French people expect everyone to use their
rules of politeness in their country, even foreigners. Most of them are just too
stupid to even imagine that in other countries they may have other rules.

> I'm rather sad to report that during my stay in Paris, I sorely
> regretted
> those 5 years I had spent learning French. One day I was so annoyed that
> I
> spoke English the whole day, and pretended not to understand any
> French;
> "They want war, they get war..." I was thinking (!).
>
:))

> Óskar
>
Parisians are absolutely awful with foreigners aren't they? Once with my
boyfriend we had a problem with the controlers of the metro, and when my
boyfriend asked for an explanation in English, the man just ignored him. Next
time I go through an equivalent situation be sure that I will pretend to speak
only English :) .

Christophe.

http://rainbow.conlang.free.fr

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