A place that is opposite from what it is in???
No wonder I can't keep up with you!
These dratted prepositions refuse to end a sentence. They've got minds of their own and will not be controlled. However, my solidarity remains genuine, whole-hearted and attended to.
Whew.
Solidarity enjoyed and appreciated. Let's stick together. After all, that's what it's all about.
Actually, I'm ready for a glass of champagne. It's close enough to Friday, I'd say. Barkeep? Whatsha got back there?
A glass of very good champagne is something I could very heartily drink up of!
Solidarity appreciated but I think I'll forego any more ending prepositions for now. You and Deb can run circles around me.
Funny enough, I just ordered some champagne whose name I can't even pronounce, to celebrate Merry Andy's new job. Come finish the bottle.
She keeps the Moet and Chandon,
In a pretty cabinet
Let them eat cake she says
Just like Marie Antoinette
Actually, MA was reputed to have said:
<<Qu'ils mangent de la croute.>>
Which means let them eat crusts--referring to the crusts which were cut off bread which was to be served to the aristocrats. Probably apocryphal from start to finish, but everyone has such fun with it . . .
(For a moment I thought you meant MA = Merry Andrew. I was astonished!)
Well that's a bit of trivia that I'm truly glad to have. How could croute be mistaken for gateau? (Please visualize diacritical markings - I think just a caret over that a.)
Did you ever lecture in history?
No, Boss, not formally, although i have annoyed people all my life. I believe the "let them eat cake" comes from the English. The English and French have cordially despised one another for centuries. The French term for going AWOL is filer a l'anglaise, the English call it "taking French leave." The French term for syphillis is la maladie anglaise, the English call it "the French disease" . . . do you see a pattern starting to develop here?
True, Setanta, where do you learn these little factoids?
I retain anything which i read and find interesting . . . of course, i usually can't remember where i laid down my glasses (and can't find them, because i don't have my glasses on . . .)--and i read a great deal . . .
Setanta, "de la croute"? I always see it as "de la brioche", quite a different form of bread.
A glass o beer, please Declan..... Hiya Boss.
MA was Austrian, Boss, brioche was beyond her ken . . .
Wassup, Lil K?
Uh, please don't fondle the hired help in front of the customers, 'k?
Living in Paris and brioche beyond her ken?
'scuse me, did you say gauche?
Well, Boss, MA and her family didn't live in Paris until taken there by force by the mob in October, 1789. Thereafter, any number of Mme LaFarge types were hangin' around the gates of the Tuileries, inspectin' packages to make sure that no brioche, camembert or really good chocolate got through . . .
Setanta, who is this "Boss" person you keep addressing?
My understanding is that Marie Antoinette was in France at the time of her marriage ceremony in 1770, and the quotation (which is "attributed to" only) could have been made any time after that - or before, for that matter. Even when she lived in Austria, her circumstances were such that she would not have been culture-bound to the ways of Austria only.
Your notion of brioche-smuggling is a colorful sidebar, though I don't connect it with any aspect of whether it might have been feasible for her to make the quip, "Qu'ils mangent de la brioche".
