Wednesday, November 27, 2013

I am outraged, I tell you, OUTRAGED!!!

OK. So at dinner I really thought I was suffering some kind of mental breakdown. Right there, in my little "Mieux rédiger" (write better) manual was the unequivocal sentence "les pingouins nagent et volent. Ils peuplent les régions arctiques (le pôle Nord)". That is to say, "pingouins" swim and fly and live in the arctic, by the North Pole.

This seemed implausible, not to say downright wrong, so I checked my trusty Petit Robert (dictionary of the froggy language, for frogs). There it was again:

Pingouin: gros oiseau marin palmipède, à plumage blanc et noir, habitant les régions arctiques. (A fat marine bird, black and white in color, living in the arctic regions).

WTF, French people? What the hell are you going on about? Does everyone in France actually believe that penguins live at the North Pole?

Would you like to know the resolution of this little riddle? Well, would you?

Here it is. And I swear I am not making this up. Because, really, how could anyone? It is because
THE WORD "PINGOUIN" DOES NOT ACTUALLY F***ING MEAN "PENGUIN". IT MEANS F***ING GREAT AUK, OR SOMETHING EQUALLY F***ING RIDICULOUS.




I'm sorry, people of frogland. Normally I quite enjoy battling with your strange froggy patois. But enough is enough. I AM OFFICIALLY F***ING OUTRAGED.


And just what IS the French word for "penguin", I hear you ask. Well, it might be "manchot", though the primary meaning for that in Petit Robert is "someone who has lost one or both arms".

I myself will be carted off in a straitjacket if this kind of thing keeps up, I swear to God.