The French Have a Word for It

No one, I am sure, really thinks that French people go around saying “L’Etat, c’est moi,” or “Vive la difference,” or even “Sonnez les matines” all the time, but I sometimes wonder whether Americans know what French people do go around saying all the time. Now I’ve made up my mind. They don’t and I’m going to tell them.

I began to notice their linguistic idiosyncracies only last month when I spent three weeks in France with one of my sisters. My French has always been good (well, let’s face it: superb) but Priscilla’s is so absolutely dashing that before we had been in Paris a full day I took two verbal paces to her rear and stayed there till we got home again. What shook me was that, two hours after we arrived, when a waiter asked us what we wanted to drink, Priscilla answered: “Two seriouses,” and he brought us each a large glass of beer,1 which was, in effect, what we wanted to drink. (I could have ordered two large glasses of beer, all right, but you know what I would have had to ask for to get them?… exactly.) So anyway, the next morning, when Priscilla told the hairdresser to give me a “shampooing” (this is a French noun which rhymes with “Rond Point”) and a put-in-pleats, I didn’t get a bit nervous (and actually, they didn’t put my hair in pleats: they gave me that same nice set I always get at Schultz’) but I did get interested in French semantics, because when you ask for serious and get a glass of beer or ask for a put-in-pleats and get your hair set—well in West Hartford, Connecticut, we call that madness.

About the Author

Aloïse Buckley Heath

Aloïse Buckley Heath (1918–1967) was the sister of National Review’s founder, William F. Buckley Jr.

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No one, I am sure, really thinks that French people go around saying “L’Etat, c’est moi,” or “Vive la difference,” or even “Sonnez les matines” all the time, but I sometimes wonder whether Americans know what French people do go around saying all the time. Now I’ve made up my mind. They don’t and I’m going to tell them.

I began to notice their linguistic idiosyncracies only last month when I spent three weeks in France with one of my sisters. My French has always been good (well, let’s face it: superb) but Priscilla’s is so absolutely dashing that before we had been in Paris a full day I took two verbal paces to her rear and stayed there till we got home again. What shook me was that, two hours after we arrived, when a waiter asked us what we wanted to drink, Priscilla answered: “Two seriouses,” and he brought us each a large glass of beer,1 which was, in effect, what we wanted to drink. (I could have ordered two large glasses of beer, all right, but you know what I would have had to ask for to get them?… exactly.) So anyway, the next morning, when Priscilla told the hairdresser to give me a “shampooing” (this is a French noun which rhymes with “Rond Point”) and a put-in-pleats, I didn’t get a bit nervous (and actually, they didn’t put my hair in pleats: they gave me that same nice set I always get at Schultz’) but I did get interested in French semantics, because when you ask for serious and get a glass of beer or ask for a put-in-pleats and get your hair set—well in West Hartford, Connecticut, we call that madness.