[time-nuts] 15 ns vs. 15 nS

Didier Juges didier at cox.net
Tue May 22 13:02:27 EDT 2007


John Day wrote:
> Funniest thing is I have a very good friend, a librarian in Paris, 
> who comes to Canada regularly. He prefers to converse in English with 
> Francophone Canadians because he says it is easier to understand than 
> the 18th century, rural France, based accent of the French spoken here.
>
>   
Since we are so far OT, I might as well continue:

On my 1st trip to Canada from the US (around 1986), I was in line at the 
check-in counter at the hotel and I could hear the young lady behind the 
desk speaking in French. I did not really pay attention to what she said 
because I was in a conversation with a colleague, but I knew it was 
French so when my turn came, I told her in French my name and 
reservation number. Bad idea! After a minute or so of utter confusion, 
we both switched to English and all was well from that point on...

It happened again at the company I was visiting (in Quebec). My hosts 
made a point of speaking French to me, which was the most embarrassing 
thing because I had no idea what they were telling me, and I was too 
embarrassed to tell them. After a while, they figured out and we had a 
good laugh, in English.

I was born in France and left when I was 33, so French is no foreign 
language to me, but in Canada, it was...

Even stranger, I had absolutely no problem watching television or 
listening to the radio, the problem was only with people in the street. 
Now that I think of it, maybe I was watching an English channel??? :-)

Didier




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