Two writers on the same subject, one gentle – affectionate even – the other biting. Both exhibit an embarrassing truth:
‘Into the face of the young man who sat on the terrace of the Hotel Magnifique at Cannes there had crept a look of furtive shame, the shifty, hangdog look which announces that an Englishman is about to speak French.’
P.G. Wodehouse
‘A man who speaks three languages is trilingual. A man who speaks two languages is bilangual. A man who speaks one language is English.’
Claude Gagniere
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Perhaps, humour vs. sarcasm?!
Of the two I prefer the Wodehouse humour!
Claude Gagniere was French. I remember as a young man finding myself in a bar in Antwerp and, no doubt adopting the “look of furtive shame, the shifty, hangdog look” in the Wodehouse quotation, summoned up my schoolboy French to ask for a drink. Everyone in the pub will have understood me – Belgian schooling must be bilingual? – but no-one moved or spoke. My Flemish didn’t exist, but when I spoke in English they answered me immediately and give me what I wanted. Sorry, Claude.
Could not agree with you more!