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  • The emigrant's destiny: The foreign country has not become home, but home has become foreign.

    --Alfred Polger (d. 1955), Der Emigrant und die Heimat

    Emigranten-Schicksal: Die Fremde ist nicht Heimat geworden. Aber die Heimat Fremde.

    Between 2007 and 2009, I lived in Los Angeles after living in Paris for many years. My Paris blog (before and after my Los Angeles sojourn) is Rue Rude.

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    05 February 2008

    Vous vs tu vs you (and thee)

    Affichepretemoitamain20061 I watched "Prête-moi ta main" the other day. I was feeling a bit smug-- I don't need subtitles, I speak French!

    Halfway through the movie, one of my kids exclaimed, "Ah! the switch to tu!" After all these years in France-- I still hadn't noticed when the main characters, who are pretending to be in love to fool his family, switched back and forth--a major point in the plot.

    Vous, tu, they're all still "you" to me.

    Of course, English used to have a tu: "thee." It died out in speech about two hundred years ago, although it's occasionally used in song and prayer even today.

    Posted at 20:19 in Expatriate , France, Language |

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    I am curious as to where you rented (bought?) the movie from, as its not listed on netflix or amazon...

    Posted by: pattoo | 16 February 2008 at 06:17

    I bought it in France over the Christmas holidays. I stocked up on things you can't get in the States! However, you can buy stuff from Amazon.fr and they'll send it to the U.S.

    Posted by: Sedulia | 16 February 2008 at 20:57

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    Today's quotation

    • In Paris, the purest virtue is the object of the filthiest slander.

        –Honoré Balzac (1799-1850), in Scènes de la vie privée

      À Paris, la vertu la plus pure est l'objet des plus sales calomnies.

    Le petit aperçu d'Ailleurs

    • Annual Geminids meteor shower (shooting stars!) coming this weekend, if it's not too cloudy out at night.

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