Friday, June 20, 2008

Some random thoughts

I like online personality quizzes as much (okay, more) as the next person, but I've noticed two on facebook that I absolutely refuse to do: the "Which Jane Austen character are you?" and "Which Green Gables character are you?" I don't think I would ever truly recover if they told me I wasn't Elizabeth Bennet or Anne Shirley. I mean, I could probably engineer them to get the right answers since I've read both those books like 20 times each, but it's not really worth the risk, you know?

Gina watches Iron Chef America a lot. One thing that gets me every time is the beginning "Allez cuisine!" What the hell is he trying to say, exactly? Because "Go cook!" should be "Allez cuisiner!" and "Go the to the kitchens!" would be "Allez aux cuisines!" At least I think so. I have actually spent time looking for answers to this on the internet. If anyone has any help, I'd appreciate it. In other news, I'm still a giant dork, be it in English or French.

Anne and I signed up to take an Intro to Modern Technique class in July. Awesome blogging to come, promise. I'm excited at getting to throw myself around a la Martha Graham.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Hi, I found your blog through a comment you left on Dooce.

Actually, I don't watch Iron Chef, but based on your above entry, I believe the first bit is right: "Allez cuisiner!" does mean "Go cook!" You shouldn't be able hear the R on the end of cuisiner. This is because when there are two verbs, the first is conjugated and the second is not. Pronunciation sometimes makes it sound as though a verb is conjugated, to the untrained ear. Trust me, it took a long time to be able to distinguish between letters that weren't there and letters that just weren't pronounced.

So, even without all the technicalities, the rough translation is "Go cook!" as you suggested earlier.

Hope that helps!

Rachel said...

Hi Ashley, welcome!

Here's where I'm going to get really French nerdy on you :). So the way he pronounces it is "ah-lay qwee-zeen" and based on the above "allez cuisiner," it ought to be pronounced "ah-lay qwee-zeen-AY." He leaves off the last AY. At least that I can tell.

But don't think I'm an expert - I can speak French, but with a mean Texas accent lurking in the background :).