Newsgroups: alt.usage.english,sci.lang
Path: cantaloupe.srv.cs.cmu.edu!rochester!cornellcs!newsstand.cit.cornell.edu!news.acsu.buffalo.edu!news.uoregon.edu!arclight.uoregon.edu!feed1.news.erols.com!howland.erols.net!news.mathworks.com!uunet!in1.uu.net!world!jcf
From: jcf@world.std.com (Joseph C Fineman)
Subject: Re: Reorganizing a.u.e.
Message-ID: <DyxEoy.JBq@world.std.com>
Organization: The World Public Access UNIX, Brookline, MA
References: <Pine.SGI.3.91.960926154339.26533B-100000@cicum90> <DyJspK.8yG@tigadmin.ml.com> <530j49$6ve@riscsm.scripps.edu> <3254DAD2.3F64@eurocontrol.fr> <53779p$ctk@cronkite.polaristel.net> <32593FC0.5A02@tiac.net> <sleichte-0710961612430001@wheat-25.nb.net>
Date: Mon, 7 Oct 1996 22:05:21 GMT
Lines: 29

sleichte@nb.net (Stuart R. Leichter) writes:

>2) I went to buy tocacco on a late summer Sunday when tobacco stores
>were closed. The practice at a non-tobac cafe is to order a beverage
>if you want to buy smokes. I didn't know my genders, so I mumbled: [I
>would like a coffee] "Je voudrais nnn cafe." The old matron d' had me
>dead to rights and wrong, so snarled: "UN cafe, m'sieur? UN cafe?" It
>was so cute, really.

My father, who spent a year in Paris in the '20s, recalled with
amusement telephone operators who would not complete his call until he
had pronounced "neuf" to their satisfaction.

>3) Cinderella's slippers were provided by a worm (un ver) in
>Perrault's "original"; the French changed the slipper to "verre" or
>glass, thus fooling even Disney. But for a bread machine recipe from
>France, I will do anything. Me, I thought this was Usenet. What we
>need on a.u.e.:  milliards of put questions about how each of us
>pronounces -th; romance; and more than 300 cheeses. The horror! The
>bandwidth! The Velveeta!

The story I heard was that it was originally made of "vair" (fur).  A
bit more plausible than manufacture by a worm (unless, that is, it was
a _silk_ slipper).  But perhaps an appeal to plausibility is out of
place in this context.  %^)
-- 
        Joe Fineman             jcf@world.std.com
        495 Pleasant St., #1    (617) 324-6899
        Malden, MA 02148
