It's a trap!

Many are the ways French people will attempt to humiliate you. Their tactics are mainly linguistic, so I have compiled a list of traps I have either been cruelly degraded by or have narrowly avoided, keeping a hold of my world-famous dignity. I hope they help you dodge any pitfalls if, god forbid, you ever decide to come here.

Javel: things are getting dutty so you buy multi-surface cleaner. There’s the option of ‘javel’ spray or ‘sans javel’ spray, so OBVIOUSLY you think wow Javel sounds pretty desirable, maybe upon usage some early-noughties RnB diva will materialise from the nozzle and start singing B With Me, or at least my kitchen will be as scintillating as Mary J Blige. NO. Javel is their unnecessarily appealing word for BLEACH, and whilst bleach is a much more ominous word, the French will try to get this shit all over your hands so they resemble a nappy-rashed Ken Clarke.

Confit de canard: Just sounds to me like ‘duck jam’. Confit probably isn’t the same as confiture but I bet ducks still get minced, squished and pasted into a jar. As is the norm with French food.

Thon: How was I supposed to know that this means tuna? It sounds like some Norse God. I was intimidated for weeks.

Carottes rapées: On my shopping list each week as ‘raped carrots’.

Crudités: I always read this as ‘cruddities’ and imagine a pile of turd hidden amongst some salad leaves.

Persil: Both the detergent brand and the word for ‘parsley’, but you’d have to be pretty fucking dim to get them confused.

Pain: I have studied French for what, 9 years? And I still read this word with an English accent. Obviously meaning ‘bread’, one of my preferred passe-temps is imagining French people queuing up for daily torture at ‘Le pain quotidien’ or chuckling immaturely at the agonisingly tasty consequences of ‘pain au chocolat’.