The title of this entry makes me sound sophisticated, right?
I think this is why Anglo-Canadians like to randomly incorporate French when writing. I once read a menu that was printed entirely in English except for “haricots verts”. Oh, green beans, you mean?
I’ve frequently seen sandwich boards announcing the “soup du jour”. Yes, Anglo-Canadians are refined enough to know that “du jour” is French for “of the day”.
But the word “soup” is English. The French word for soup is…
Wait for it…
Wait a bit longer…
SOUPE.
Soup, but with something extra: the letter “e”… which is silent. Clearly, this was too extra for the hungry English-speaking community.
I can just imagine a café employee working on the day’s sandwich board and the manager coming up behind them, “Whoa, whoa… what the fuck is soupe? We want to feed people, not confuse them.”
Why do we have to half-ass it with “thought du jour” too? “Thought of the day” not contemplative enough?
Montréal isn’t a difficult city to navigate when you’re an Anglophone, unless you’re farsighted and know no French. You see, many stores have bilingual signage, but the English is always written in smaller font.
Even if the translated word matches…
Redondant.
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