Why Did My High School French Not Teach Me The Word “Frifri”?
[Editor’s note: Am I really so stupid as to not have pressed “Publish” after writing this yesterday? Yes, apparently I am. Sorry about that.]
Wherever I go, I like to have enough command of the language to obtain, with minimal chance of screw-ups¹, any or all of the following:
- Train tickets
- Lodging for the night
- Food
- Beer
Despite not really enjoying myself at the time, I had four years of French back in high school, and it remains stubbornly lodged in my hindbrain to this day². Although I have no need to obtain goods or services in French at the moment, it does prove useful in that it’s allowed me to get a basic read of Hurricane Erika’s latest comic, which is found in the virtual pages of 17 mai, a French-language anthology on the subjects of various kinds of sexual orientation-phobia.
Cue the attack dogs. While you’re at it, kick up my regards for Ms Moen and her willingness to talk about the perceptions and assumptions of sexual identity after spent spent literally years getting shit on by people who decided that she was a hateful, oppressive, trans-phobic traitor to the cause because of this comic. Oh, and literally years of getting shit on by people who decided that she was insufficiently conforming to the proper way of being a[n] <insert sexual orientation and/or identity here> for their comfort. Whatever, haters, Erika’s got her eyes on what’s important: gettin’ laid.
So if you read French (even poorly), check out Queer [it pisses me off that I have to say that, depending on where you live/work, you might not want to read this honest, brave, funny comic until you’re away from judgmental eyes, but there you go]; even if you don’t, it shouldn’t be too hard to figure out what’s happening (I especially like the tut-tut body language of the Identity Police in the second-to-last panel), and Moen’s promised to post the English version in a few days, once she’s ready for the latest round of poo flung in her direction. If you like the comic even a fraction as much as I did, maybe let her know? Your appreciation is probably a moderately effective poo-brella.
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¹ Screws up? I saw what you did in Adventure Time #4 (out yesterday) with respect to the plural of “Desert Princess”, Ryan North.
² Along with enough Japanese and maybe half as much German as would be necessary to accomplish the four-fold task outlined above. The less said about my semi-disastrous tendency to lapse into tlhIngan Hol when confronted with the more guttural phonemes of Dutch, the better.
Eh, vous dites probablement ça en plaisantant Gary, mais mes 20+ années de Français comme langue maternelle ne m’avaient pas appris “frifri” non plus… (et juste pour l’édification des lecteurs de fleen, “chatte” est un équivalent, je pense plus commun).
By Pierre Lebeaupin on 05.19.12 3:50 am
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