JJ informed me, when he dropped them off, that they are French bulldogs, which has led med to reassess my opinion of the French. They may know a lot about making wine and fries, but they don't know jacques-merde about making dogs.

The only French word I know is oui, which means “yes,” and only recently did I learn it’s spelled o-​u-​i and not w-​e-​e.

What's the trick to remembering that a sandwich is masculine? What qualities does it share with anyone in possession of a penis? I'll tell myself that a sandwich is masculine because if left alone for a week or two, it will eventually grow a beard.

Magical?" "Non." "Magnificent?" "Don't be absurd." "Less bleak than anything else we have seen?" "Now truly you are speaking French," the ambassador said approvingly.

She doesn’t have a ring on each finger, or a big diamond on each ring.

She doesn’t wear a gold watch that costs as much as a fancy car.

In fact, she doesn’t own a fancy car.

She doesn’t carry an enormous designer bag.

But she might have a newspaper under her arm.

She might mention Sartre or Foucault in a conversation.

It’s her personality that sparkles and nothing else: the signs of intellectual wealth.

In Paris they just simply opened their eyes and stared when we spoke to them in French! We never did succeed in making those idiots understand their own language.