[Dixielandjazz] si tu vois ma mère

[Bill Gunter]

Hi all,

Tito wrote (in response to Jan Nichols post on "faux French"):

>Sorry, Jack, why falsify and despise other people's cultural heritage?
>Can easily be interpreted as being ignorance or arrogance.   :-)

I suppose Tito doesn't understand that when Eddie Erickson sings "C'est Si 
Bon" he is not ridiculing the French. There is no attempt here to "falsify" 
anything and there is certainly NO attempt to despise anybody's culture. He 
is simply using French phrases such as "menage a Trois" etc. which Americans 
understand but are out of context for an extremely amusing and clever bit of 
musical comedy.

>Americans certainly don't need these labels, especially at present
>circumstances.

What labels?

And why is today any different than any other time in the history of 
mankind?

>To learn another language increases our narrow vision of
>our Planet.  And our Planet is bigger than most people think, certainly.

How big (or small) does Tito think we believe our planet to be? And exactly 
how does learning another language increase our narrow vision of the planet? 
Does Tito suggest that somehow only those who speak their native tongue are 
less capable of understanding the nature of our planet? I know lots of 
people who are really bright and perceptive and yet only speak English. I 
also know a number of people who are bi-lingual (and even tri-lingual) who 
are really dumb!!  :-)

>To any mediocre citizen it's easy to learn by heart a couple dozen words
>and its correct pronunciation.

I'm not sure that "mediocre" is the exact word Tito was driving for here. I 
believe he meant "average." -- the definition of "mediocre" is "adequate, 
but not very good." See, in the U.S. to call someone "mediocre" is an insult 
whereas there is never an insult when we refer to average Americans. That's 
one of the problems when learning another language - we are never sure that 
this particular word or that particular word may cause offense when none is 
intended.

Good example is my mother reading about the problems faced by gay people and 
remarking "What sort of problems can happy people have?"

I can understand folks being concerned, even worried, about offending others 
but often this leads to an over-zealous attempt to "cleanse" our language so 
that we are only allowed to speak those things which are "non-offensive" (as 
if such a thing were possible) and are politically correct.

How easy to call others arrogant when no arrogance is present, or even 
implied.  :-)

Don't hurts!  :-)

Right! And Eddie Erickson along with Jan Nichols never hurts nobody!

Respectfully submitted,

Bill Gunter

ps - I hope I don't offend nobody!

-bg




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