Date:  Wed, 16 Mar 1994 10:42:23 -0500

From:  "William A. Kretzschmar, Jr." <billk[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ATLAS.UGA.EDU>

Subject: French linguistic legislation chauvinism



My spouse and I love Paris, and are looking forward to going once more

next month for the ACH/ALLC conference, but she has had terrible trouble

there when she tries to speak French. The most vivid recent example was

the ticket lady in the Orangerie; Claudia got a terrible scowl for asking

about museum tickets. I've never had a problem, or even a scowl. The

only thing close was when I went to ask about Customs in the basement of

the Gallerie Lafayette: the first person I talked to didn't know the

answer to my question (about duties on artworks) and called over her

colleague, who spoke some English, on grounds that I must not be asking

the question right---the colleague, who had overheard the entire exchange,

said that my French was fine and that she didn't know the answer to my

question either! The answer, by the way, is that there is no US duty on

original artworks.

******************************************************************************

Bill Kretzschmar         Phone:  706-542-2246

Dept. of English         FAX:   706-542-2181

University of Georgia      Internet: billk[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]hyde.park.uga.edu

Athens, GA 30602-6205      Bitnet:  wakjengl[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]uga