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Joined: Dec 2000
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OP
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Thought I'd post this winning piece of writing (200 words) which borrows as many words as possible from French, German and Spanish. I'm sure many of you would fancy you'd do pretty well, in all liklihood with a tendancy to use one language more than the others, as is the case below. Anyway, it reads like this:
My lover went en famille to the Mardi Gras fiesta, cancelling our restaurant rendezvous, tete-a-tete a deux. As the maitre d'hote and chef discussed the a la carte menu, my cafe au lait petit-four and eclair lay untouched on the balsa patio table. He is my raison-d'etre, my confidant. A dancer par excellence, his tango a tour de force, the rumba his piece de resistance. A raconteur with bonhomie, bon-vivant with savoir faire. We visited cafes, bistros and delicatessen, exploring tapas and nouvelle cuisine. He bought me lingerie (ecru brassiere), a cerise poncho (fashion faux pas), eau de toilette and papier mache object d'art (how outre!) A chauffeur driven entrepreneur, he sells pretzels and pumpernickel, clothes a la mode (never pret-a-porter!). He predicts the Zeitgeist, is au fait with ballet, apres-ski, croquet and salsa. He breeds dachshunds, chihuahua and iguana. A chauvinist roue, he loves risque double entendre, yet I ended up au natruel at his pied-a-terre - j'accuse the cognac and liquer. Was I a femme fatale - a paramour, coquette? Or a naive kindergarten child? My ersatz amour is kaput, my joie de vivre and amour-propre gone. Au revoir France, croissants and crepes. Manana England. Lesley Kelly, 2002
Please excuse that the dialectic, er, diacritic markings are missing - I could be bothered with them - they couldn't be bothered with me.
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Joined: Mar 2000
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Posts: 6,511 |
Viva Europanto!!
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Joined: May 2000
Posts: 679
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Nice one BY!
I sent this to my Walloon girlfriend yesterday and she loved it! i don't think she had any idea that we used so much French (not to mention Spanish and German) in our everyday speech. And she was telling me the other day how difficult English is to speak!
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Joined: Mar 2000
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Did you write this, by? What did you win? Query: would roue by any chance have meant rogue?
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Joined: May 2000
Posts: 679
addict
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No, Jackie. A Roue is a lecherous, dissipated man. Obviously you haven't met too many of them!!
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Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 11,613
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Well, I didn't see how a he could be a sauce. And no, Dearest Rubrick, I haven't met you yet!
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Joined: May 2000
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Hey, just call me Rouebrick!
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Hey, just call me Rouebrick! And all this time, I'd thought that a Ruebrick was the cobblestone used in paving french streets! [rueful smile ]
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Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 1,055
old hand
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OP
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> Did you write this, by?
No, sorry if I didn't make that clear enough - I don't want to take any credit - except for posting it :-) I wrote the name of the author under the piece (now in bold), I merely copied it (fairly poorly) from the paper that awarded this lady with the prize. If I'd done it I'd have opted for a male narrator to start with, not to mention far more German loan words!
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Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 771
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"Eager young lads/and roues and cads/will offer you food and wine!" Sixteen Going On Seventeen, The Sound of Music
FWIW ~
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