Friday, June 02, 2006

Comment dit-on “juice me” en français?

So today was Couscous Friday: School lunch was couscous. Today’s grains of couscous were unusually fine – fine, in the sense that sandpaper can be coarse or fine. As a result, the couscous had a certain “Grape Nuts” quality to it, absorbing all of the liquid with which it came into contact.

Others at my table went back to the lunch line and asked for more juice. I followed their lead, but tried to be cute. Instead of simply asking for more juice, I mixed American slang with broken pseudo-French. I asked, “Comment on dit ‘juice me’ en français?”

The French itself was incorrect. More got lost in translation. My intention was to ask how a person would say “juice me” in French. Instead, my lunch line friend thought I was asking how to request “just meat”. In the midst of my futile attempts to recover and explain that my couscous was thirsty and needed a drink, the lunch line attendant was busy heaping additional morsels of chicken upon my mound of couscous.

If you want more meat in a French-speaking country, the words “juste la viande” may be of value to you.

On future occasions, I think I’ll steer clear of asking anyone to “juice me”.

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