Friday 22 February 2013

Holiday games

When driving in to Akumal on our recent Mexico holiday, I found myself challenging Aidan to "first one to see the sea gets a Mars Bar".  Of course it didn't help that we had already seen the sea earlier when we landed and Mars bars are not freely available in Mexico or that Aidan doesn't even know what a Mars bar is...

Thursday 21 February 2013

Parlez vous Francais? Mais oui!

"Mais oui!": a curious use of the unnecessary preposition 'but' to add extra emphasis and a Gallic tone of surprise to the simple [and perfectly adequate on its own] 'yes'. I used this at a restaurant in Paris on Monday. The waitress was ushering us to our table. I followed her initial babble then lost it. She paused, I paused and then realised the question she was asking so responded with a "mais oui!" She smiled in a what-a-fool-of-a-foreigner sort of way.

The expression is sometimes followed by "hon-he-hon-he-hon!". But not on this occasion!