Poltergay

This poster advertising the French movie-musical "Poltergay" is plastered all over the Paris metro, and it never ceases to cause me to giggle to myself. I have no idea what the hell this is about, but I bet it's built on the "it's so bad, it's funny" premise. Perhaps when I have the ability to actually understand people speaking French, I can go and see it.

Today's edition of Nathan Hellman's Blog is brought to you by the French word for the day, which is the verb "tutoyer." French, like many of the romance languages, has two different ways of calling somebody "you." There's the formal way ("vous", as in "S'il vous plait" = please) which is traditionally used to address people that you don't know in a familiar way or as a general sign of respect, or the informal way ("tu", as in "je t'aime" = I love you) which is used when addressing children or people you know in a familiar way. The verb "tutoyer" refers to the act of using the "tu" form of addressing somebody. For example, after we got married, Claire's parents told me specifically that I should try and use the "tu" form with them from now on since I was part of the family.

The entire tu/vous issue is a difficult one for Americans to understand, and in my opinion brings about an additional layer of perplexity while learning the new language. Do I use the "tu" form with my boss in the lab? Who makes the first move to tutoyer somebody in a given relationship? It's not like in English, when you can somewhat avoid the decision whether to call your friend's parents Samantha and Richard instead of Mr. and Mrs. Perkins...in French, you can't really help using one of the two different "you" forms in regular conversation, and at some point you have to just choose. Plus, having an additional form of "you" just adds to the number of verb forms that one has to memorize...