To (tu) you

I’m not in the mood to write today, my tooth hurts, I feel lonely and I can’t get going with anything.

I should sleep but I don’t want to yet, I would like to walk by the sea through the evening but it’s too far away and really I‘d like to be with Krissie.

She’s off in Germany and a friend came by and asked me where something was that Krissie had promised to leave out for her.

I had no idea, so I said something like – She’s not here at the moment so she probably left it somewhere but I can’t find IT.

Ok, not brilliantly helpful but the real problem was that I was doing this in French and whatever the thing was I am pretty certain is feminine in French so for my “it” I used “elle”, which is probably grammatically stupid but I was tired and trying to deal with a cat that was attacking a Praying Mantis.

My daughter came up to me afterward and whispered in my ear that because I had used “elle” the neighbour had understood the following.

She’s not here at the moment so she probably left it somewhere but I can’t find HER.

Which, since it is in fact how I feel tonight, was fairly accurate.

But why do the French insist on having masculine and feminine nouns? It’s just annoying.

Take the word “The” for example.

I have tried to develop a non-committal “Ler”, which could be heard either as a – Le, or a – La, depending on what the listener is expecting and my substitute – “ern” for the correct –Un, and – Une, has been quite successful.

The hardest thing for me to adjust to though is the concept of having two words for –You.

Sometimes you can understand a concept on an intellectual level but, even after 17 years, have difficulty applying it with practice.

The basic idea, I think, is to use “Tu” if the relationship is informal and “Vous” if it is not.

However, when I first came to France, the number of films I saw where married couples used the ‘vous’ form with each other just confused me.

Even more confusing were the social conventions at play when a relationship changed from formal to less formal.

What I didn’t know was that the French also have a verb that means, “using the tu form”- tutoyer.

This allows you to effectively ask someone – do you mind if I call you you?

Or can I you you?

The first time I became aware of this verb, which frankly should have been the FIRST thing Mr Gregoire taught me in the Sixth Form at school, was in a conversation with an Air France agent.

“Yesterday you told me the price was 230 Francs, now you are telling me it’s 270?”
“Yes”
“You can’t do that?”
“Why do you keep you-ing me?
“I’m not killing you, I’m angry!”

Let me explain – to my uneducated ear Tutoyer sounded like Tuer – the only verb I knew in that alphabetic area, and that means to kill.

As I got more angry I “killed” her more and she got more and more offended, asked me why i kept killing her and i got more and more angry and said "I'm not killing you!'

Now I use Ryan Airways – there’s no one to talk to so there is no misunderstanding.

Sometimes in a conversation I would use “tu’’ and “vous” randomly hoping that I was showing both knowledge and friendliness.

In fact it just confused people, those who were frosty walked away and those who were friends became frosty.

So now I just use “Tu” with anyone I like and “Vous” for official business. I have also developed an aggressive “V-ous” that I use when anyone starts trouble – the man from the Water board for example.

Anyway, I didn’t “Kill” the Air France Agent and the cat didn’t kill the Praying Mantis.

In fact the cat was backing off when I stepped in. The Praying Mantis had reared up on its tiny back legs, fanned open all it’s wings and was advancing with a weird hissing sound that apparently emanates from the abdomen, or thorax or something.

It sounded very like a “V-ous” to me.