Wednesday, December 22, 2004

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Well, we ignorant Yanks used to study French in school back when we thought it might come in handy some day. Being practical people, we realized that knowledge of French was an asset of dubious and declining value. One of my kids instead learned Spanish, another Latin (more useful than French these days), and the third has yet to decide.

Lack of practice usually accounts for our lack of foreign language skills. I have forgotten nearly all the French I ever learned, not having spoken it (except on one trip to Paris and another to Quebec) in 25 years. Remember, it is about twice as far from Boston to Los Angeles as it is from Amsterdam to Moscow, and we can ask directions along the way in English. Europeans would have to speak Dutch, French, German, Polish, Lithuanian, Russian ...

Mitch (ip:68.163.227.196) 22 December 2004 - 17:12 uur

Actually, I was referring more to the rather conservative nature of the Weekly Standard, and the fact that France isn't too popular in those circles these days ;-)

Arjan Dasselaar (ip:82.161.93.35) 22 December 2004 - 19:18 uur

Not much more popular than a skunk at a garden party or a hornet at a nudist camp. Between the French and the Saudis, I think we would rather have a dozen more enemies than those two friends.

Mitch (ip:64.252.115.63) 22 December 2004 - 2:30 uur

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