French, and it feels oh-so-natural.

After a great vacation in Corsica, and a few glasses of wine at lunch, it occured to me that France is particularly great.

So, naturally, I decided to see about becoming a..naturalized French citizen.
(Dual, of course - I'm keeping my nifty blue passport)

I have seriously thought about it before, but something about La Rentrée 2011 feels like this is a good time to start this beast of a process.

I didn't know the coolest thing about this, though :

"Lors de sa demande de naturalisation, le postulant peut demander, sous certaines réserves, la francisation de ses nom et/ou prénom(s) ainsi que celle des prénoms de ses enfants.

Il peut aussi demander l'attribution d'un prénom français, lorsque lui ou ses enfants n'ont aucun prénom."

... 
It says that I can basically French-ify my first or last name while I demand citizenship.
I can change my name again and it would even be encouraged by the French government!

Oh, the possibilities. First of all, I should shorten it to "France"  (an actual French first name for women) and well, the "H" .. the H has to go.  Ansen? Assan? (as so many people think).
What would really be the most French last name, ever?
Here are some actual French last names I have heard recently.
What would they look like when paired with my potential new French first name?

France Nègre ("France Negro")
France Sansoucy ("France No worries")
France LeBoeuf ("France Beef")
France Lellouche (approx. "France Cross-Eyed")

Right, so...inappropriate, awkward and strange.
I am going to continue and play this game as I fall asleep at night.
The Frenchest name of all shall be mine!

The mysteries of Fringlish.

Man, long time since I last posted. What can I say ? Things have been going well, and happy people are not funny. If you want to read a really boring blog about Paris written by smarmy happy people read this one. Still happy, but I missed blogging. Moving on : 

What brings me back to the little e-soapbox is the state of Fringlish in France.

It is really unfair to call it "Chinglish" because it is so clearly not limited to China, nor Asia.

Entente cordiale be damned, France is simply tragic in English and foreign languages in general. I find it especially annoying in English, because as most French people have some knowledge of it, they mangle our dear language with carelessness and bravado.

The other day, a French friend once announced that she was a trendsetter. Pausing for effect, she presented her new moniker :

"Je suis un'to be follow'" 

- "Uh...."

And let's look at two of my errands for today.

I got a salad at "Yourself". Not a self-help book, a navel-gazing salad bar in the 8th that plays on yet another English misnomer. "Un self" means any self-service salad bar, which they so proudly matched with the possessive pronoun -  making a pun, in French...using English words. We feel clever now, don't we, Salad bar owners ?

After having a Yourself Salad, I crossed the street for a Feel So Good Bikini Wax.
No, there is no 'happy ending' to this bikini wax. And we all might suspect that waxes do not Feel So Good. Then WHY? The worst is when the poor hair-pullers answer the phone "Feel So Good, Bonjour!" Is that a question? A mandate? You! Feel So good! Rrrrrrip!

Entrepreneurs of France : think twice before naming your establishment.

You are not speaking English, you are speaking pidgin English with Panache. French Pidgin. Fridgin?

And here comes the coup de grâce : The linguistic weed that I can neither understand nor find the root of : Sprinkling Nouns, Adjectives and Verbs together like confetti in your title. For example, near Batignolles, there is a guitar lesson boutique called "Learn and Fun". 

...just like a bird and fish, a verb and a noun may indeed love each other but this does not mean that they should be committed to a title together !

Furthermore, the idiocy of such a title is obvious even to pure Francophones. Apprendre & Divertissement ? No. Hiding your stupidity in English does not make it go away. Or any cooler.

Many people, most notably my brother, like to make fun of the Académie française for paddling upstream against inflows of English. But France regulates everything else that French citizens cannot be trusted to consume responsibly (drugs, alcohol, Health Care..) why not the English Language?

..."Parler mal l'Anglais tue (les oreilles de votre entourage)".