Week 15 - How to Speak French

I hope you realize that the title of this week's blog is false advertising, which should of course be avoided if you're selling something. Since I'm selling good grammar, I've erred (which rhymes with "bird," not with "aired," by the way), but I did so because I was just reading a great blog (http://www.copyblogger.com/copywriting-101/) that talks about the primary goal of a headline, which is to get you to read the first sentence. And the goal of the first sentence is to get you to read the second sentence, and so on until you make your sales pitch, which is of course so persuasive that lots of readers buy your product.

So I'm not going to teach you how to speak French (I couldn't anyway -- I'm having a hard enough time with English!), but lots of French words have crept into our everyday usage, and it's good to know how to pronounce them. Last week we learned that French words ending in "er,", "et," and "ez" (but not "es") all sound as if they have an English long "a" at the end. Words that end in "é" have that same long "a" sound. One that comes up all the time is a favorite cooking technique, "sauté," whose first syllable is pronounced just like the English word "so," not like "saw." Same goes for the popular wine, Sauvignon Blanc, and remember not to pronounce the second "n" in Sauvignon or the "c" in Blanc. The last sound in each of those words is that same nasal "on-without-the-n" sound that doesn't occur in English -- good luck!

Here's one more that came up this week, "laissez-faire," meaning "hands-off," as in a "laissez-faire attitude." How do you say it? Well, "faire" is pronounced just like the English word "fair," the "ez" is just like long "a," and "laiss" is easier than it looks, sounding just like "less" in English.

OK, another technique for keeping people interested through a piece of writing is to maintain a level of suspense, in this case "When is this guy going to stop speaking French, already?" I've gotten some suggestions for topics from friends and family -- let's do some of those.


Apostrophes, revisited

Ellen asked me to revisit apostrophes (remember Week 6?), since they're involved in so many common mistakes. Here are a couple from this week. She saw a sign in a department store recently that said

Men
Women
Kid's

It's hard to imagine why someone would want to put an apostrophe in "Kid's" in that context. If the sign had said "Men's, Women's, Kids'," that would have been OK, since the three words would all have been possessives. Or if it had said "Men, Women, Kids," that would have been fine, since they would all have been plurals. But as written, the sign mixed a singular possessive with two plural non-possessives -- amazing!

I always get a few holiday cards that say (name changed, of course)

Greetings from the Smith's

which has exactly the same problem as "Kid's" in Ellen's sign -- using a singular instead of a plural, and using a possessive where it wasn't warranted. All of the variants below are fine, of course:

Greetings from the Smiths

Greetings from a Smith

Greetings from the Smiths' Dog

Greetings from a Smith's Cat


Lose vs. Loose

This one's for Scott of the HDC. It seems easy -- maybe the mistakes he sees are just typos:

You can lose your grip if your grip is too loose.


Led vs. Lead

Another easy one (haha), also from Scott. Isn't English grand?

Professor Calligraph led the way in inventing the lead pencil; some say he took the lead in its manufacture too.

The first "lead" is pronounced like "led," but that's the only resemblance, since it's really a noun used as an adjective. The second "lead" is also a noun, but it's pronounced the same as the present and future tenses of the verb "to lead," of which "led" is the past tense, as in

If I lead today, having also led yesterday, my legs will feel like lead tomorrow.


Anxious vs. Eager

This one's for my sister Eleanor, perhaps even more of a grammar fiend than I, who suggested a clarification on "anxious vs. eager" months ago. "Anxious" means that someone is nervous, typically about a future event; "eager" describes someone with an enthusiastic, positive attitude.

I'm anxious about my upcoming audition, but I'm eager to put it behind me and move on.

Thanks for all your suggestions and comments. Keep 'em coming!