Café au Lait and Cabernet Sauvignon
Café au Lait and Cabernet Sauvignon
Pardon My French
Extra Muros continues the serialization of Pardon My French, a light-hearted look at some of the French expressions that have taken up residence in the Anglosphere.
The original recipe for this drink called for one part brewed coffee and one part milk. Outside of France, however, the coffee is often replaced by espresso, thereby providing a kick worthy of a drink with a name that could be spelled cafe olé.
In France, the counterpart of café au lait is thé au lait. However, as Anglophone purveyors of tea with milk work hard to appear as stereotypically British as they can possibly be, there is no niche for the term in the English language.
Soon after making the switch from Boone’s Farm to something with a cork in it, the typical American wine drinker will sprain his tongue on the phrase cabernet sauvignon. While few Anglophones will ever produce a reasonable facsimile of the original pronunciation (which rhymes with “sur le pont d’Avignon”), a decent regard for the opinions of mankind requires that both the “g” and “t” remain silent. (Those who insist upon pronouncing those might just as well ask for a bottle of Magen David 20/20. The effect upon the wine steward will be the same.)
The links appended to the titles will take you to Google Translate, where you will find an icon similar to the one used with many volume controls. When you click that button, an authentic French robot will pronounce the word or phrase in question.
I still have my plastic spoon and P-38 for opening a C-Rat can of turkey loaf. But one has to laud the author for giving us a go and trying to drag us out of the dark end of the cave!
As a HS graduate and a student in a one-room school house for my first eight years, I have problems with English and now you expect me to pronounce French words? I think not!