Un café

      This week is la semaine de la langue française, French language week. The French adore their language so much that they have an entire upper organization called the Académie Française devoted to preserving it. Any new word that comes into the language isn't officially a French word until it is approved by the Académie. Our classes have been all about French influences in other languages this week and we viewed a video announcement against inputting English words into French conversation. For example, someone would say: "Je suis overbooké" (I'm overbooked). The Académie is as horrified by this as I was when I heard Zayn was leaving One Direction.
     Don't get me wrong - the French love to use English words in their daily conversation, especially the young. It's considered very cool. But others fear use of these words decrease the value of the French language. 
    And now for some fun facts: 1) There is no French equivalent of the phrase "fun fact" and that makes me sad and 2) the English word "mushroom" came about when the English sailed to France, pointed to the mushrooms and asked what they were. In French, mushrooms are champignons, but a meadow where mushrooms are grown are called mousseron. The English heard mousseron (and ignored champignon) and by the time the word settled into English, it became mushroom.