When the man came to fix the water pipe outside, I could hear him and Brian laughing out loud. What on earth was so funny, I wondered just what was going on, as the man hardly spoke any English.
It transpired that they had got chatting in a kind of French and English mix (we often call it Franglais) and were discussing some odd derivations of words.
The man had asked Brian where he thought the word barbecue originated, and apparently Brian suggested America. I think that’s what I would have said. Then the man said it was French, saying that the term came from Barbe-à-queue, which translated means ‘From beard-to-tail’, and relates to the skewer the animal is cooked on. Ooh , that was a bit gruesome I thought.
Brian then countered his story with one of his own. He asked him where he thought the internationally accepted term Mayday came from? He had no clue. So Brian explained.
Apparently, it’s derived from the French for ‘Help me’, which is literally spelt (in French) as ‘you-me help’, or ‘Vous m’aidez’, just shorten it by dropping the ‘you’, and you have ‘M’aidez’, or help me!
I was quite impressed, his French is definitely improving.