TTIP Again
I
got an email from an old friend in England, Eric Leach, proudly
proclaiming that a petition he had been supporting against TTIP had
gathered well over 3 million signatures throughout Europe. And so he
should be proud. Apparently a number of councils in England have
come out against TTIP and the intention is to get more to do so. By
contrast, I've asked a number of friends here who should be aware of
TTIP if they are and none seem to be. There are certainly no signs
of general revolt as there were, for instance, with the NOME law that
allowed the part-privatisation of the electricity industry. But then
few here take much notice of what goes on in Brussels until it
affects their lives directly. I take this to be this to be an
illustration of the general attitude that, although Brussels is
important, if the French don't like it's decisions they'll simply
ignore them and won't comply.
Quality Food And
Drink
Friend Steve and I
were discussing the quality of wine locally. We had both known the
days of the 1950s and 1960s in England when the bottle you brought to
a party was invariably a white semi-sweet Sauternes or Entre de Mers
(which, incidentally, I've never seen in France) or an Algerian or
Moroccan red. These latter generally had grounds of a purplish
colour at the bottom of the bottle and were barely drinkable but
enabled you to get into party mood and were your laisser passer if
you hadn't been specifically invited to the party. That market in
England has totally disappeared from view, as also has that for the
Blue Nun style hocks for the blue rinse set.
Here in Mollans and
now we are spoiled for choice for rosé
wines ranging from light
and flinty to full-bodied and most of the local vineyards make at
least one good red wine, some extremely good, at very reasonable
prices which, allowing for inflation, would have been affordable in
our student days. No one
seems any longer to make the inferior quality of red wine that we
drank as students. And
in England there is possibly a better selection of wine from
worldwide sources than in any other country, albeit at prices grossly
inflated by the tax regime.
What
both Steve and I discovered in our discussion is that something very
similar has happened to the food market in England. There is still,
admittedly, the fast food market but that is now universal. Apart
from that, if you want bad food you almost have to go looking for it.
One distinction I used to make between England and France was that
if you ended up in the middle of nowhere in either country and
decided to eat in the local cafe or restaurant, the chances were that
you would get a good meal in France and a bad one in England. That
seems no longer to be as
true. English TV now
seems to be obsessed with cooking good food and
has been for some time,
which is no doubt a contributory reason, but it
does seem that the English
are now educating their
taste buds and using
their feet to follow their taste buds. And the market is responding.
Teaching
English
I
probably should have headlined this teaching and learning English.
Because both Steve and I are getting insights into
our native English while
we are teaching it to the French. I've always thought that English
grammar is essentially simple compared to that of most other European
languages and hold to that view. There are no cases or genders to
think about, precious little in terms of verb conjugation and a fast
disappearing subjunctive. Vocabulary is just that in all romance
languages; you either know the word or you don't. On the other hand,
the use of prepositions is difficult in most romance languages and
probably much more so in English beause
of our use of them to modify verbs;
and, of course, pronunciation in English is a nightmare.
What
this seems to amount to, from the evidence of our classes in Mollans,
is that most of the participants don't have a great deal of
difficulty with written English provided they have the relevant
vocabulary which,
admittedly, is not normally the case. Vocabulary, anyway, even for
me in English, is a never-ending quest. What has amazed me is the
huge gulf between most written English and the spoken colloquial
variety (even excluding slang). Take, as just one example, one
person saying to another: “We're going for a meal Tuesday week;
can you make it?” A perfectly normal sentence but…….what is a
Tuesday week and are you being invited to cook the meal? You won't
find much help from a dictionary even with “going for a meal”.
“The drinks are on us” is another phrase we've used; meaning we
are soaking wet? And
elisions…………..we might write
“we are not” but never say it, except possibly for emphasis.
It's, aren't, hasn't, hadn't, won't, mightn't (but not mayn't), etc,
are all part of everyday English conversation but foreign to people
with intermediate English but who are beginners as speakers.
That
is part of the
quagmire that Steve and I are trying to tread our way through. But
it's still fun at the moment, for us and apparently for the
participants too.
Gresham's
Law
I'm
having a problem in the house with basin stoppers at the moment,
which made me think of Gresham's Law. Gresham's Law was formulated
in the field of economics and asserts that bad currency drives out
good currency. However, the principle that inferiority drives out
quality is often applied more generally. It has its equivalent in
the field of language development, in the Law of Least Effort. That
asserts, effectively, that incorrect grammar, spelling, punctuation,
pronunciation, etc, will replace good grammar, etc, over time.
I
was reminded of this by the basin problem because I have never
understood why French plumbing doesn't use plugs
in basins and baths. Plugs are virtually indestructible and
infallible. The French lever system is fine if it works but the
devil to fix if it doesn't. My kitchen sink has the lever system
with the lever mechanism hidden somewhere in the bowels of the sink
and seems impossible to fix without buying a new sink. If a plug
breaks or goes missing it is easy and cheap to replace it. What's
more, the French system, which was never used in the UK, is now
appearing there more and more frequently. It's a good illustration
of Gresham's Law.
I
feel the same way about chopsticks. I never use chopsticks to eat
Chinese meals (although I can, not very well) because I think that if
the Chinese had invented forks they would use them. They have
invented spoons, which seem to me more appropriate for most Chinese
food, but I can't imagine why anyone who
had a fork would use
chopsticks unless they wanted to show off their dexterity or have fun
with friends seeing who could balance the most rice grains on a
chopstick.
Rant
over. It's just occurred to me that this argument conflicts with
what I have written about food and drink above.
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