Wednesday, August 05, 2009

O Docker's French Quiz

Right. So I thought I was going to go home & write about the best trip I ever cancelled tonight. Ha ha, no such luck, I am fast in the fearsome grip of Month End Close, aka "EOP" in O-Docker Land. agh.

And speaking of O-Docker - since there is not really going to be a post from me tonight, I thought I'd bring up his rather excellent little test of how well one recalls one's high school or college French. Oddly enough, it came up during further discussions of the one-mississippi rule. I had long been living under the pleasant delusion that it's a mile per mississippi, not so, it's a mere fifth of a mile per mississippi. This led to further debate - why Mississippi? Why not Philadelphia, Sacramento, Nicaragua, and it must have been around afternoon sugar fix time for me because I carried that on to why not one malasada (scrumptious Portuguese puka-less doughnut made with potato flour, yum yum), and then Puffin Michael pointed out that in Europe you could say one Seine, two Seine, three Seine to get kilometres; I said wouldn't you say une Seine, deux Seine, trois Seine, and that's what reminded the esteemed O-Docker (or would that be Eau Docker?) of something, and oops, so sorry that the preamble has gotten longer than the entire quiz, here it is for your puzzlement and/or enjoyment already!:

OK, you had to bring up 'Une Seine, Deux Seines, Trois Seines'. A French teacher once stymied some of the best minds of my third period French class with this proverb. But it should be easier for kayakers. Can you translate? No googling!

"Pas de lieu, Rhone que nous!"

Thank you, O-docker!

Oh, btw, in case anyone was wondering, I cheated & googled in the end. I was stumped. Wasn't terrible at French in high school, but that was a rather long time ago - as I've mentioned here, my 25th reunion is next year, eek!

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