Archive for September, 2009

Swearing in French

Saturday, September 5th, 2009


Years ago I had a large vehicle. This vehicle wasted gas while it saved souls. For this vehicle, you see, was large enough to transport a few French exchange students around the suburban parts of Edina and St. Louis Park as they swore their hearts out into the night.

I was, ostensibly, the “host parent” for one of them. In this position it fell to me to become the taxi driver. Being irresponsible as I tend to be, I not only encouraged the lovely Odele to speak her mind out in the car but to entice her somewhat shy and culturally shell-shocked expatriates to do the same.

The cacophony of cursing that soon followed on those taxi rides is a mellifluous memory I shall never forget. When a young French girl swears back and forth from English to French it is a sound that can melt the hardest heart. Which reminds me that french rap is a good facsimile thereof.

Gangsta seems somehow cultivated in a romance tone.

Its so contradictory that it must be cool.