Chercher le mouton à cinq pattes

exp. – looking for the sheep with five feet or basically something that’s too good to be true – not that I know why a five footed sheep would be such a good thing.

Looking for a job, especially in a difficult economy, can be a daunting task. Beginning with the job descriptions themselves, no matter what the position is, the expectations always seem overly ambitious to the point of being unrealistic. I’m surprised they don’t include things like “candidate should be able to fly and breathe under water.” On the other hand, including words like “motivated, professional, organized and responsible” seem a bit redundant because if one has none of these qualities, it’s not likely they’ll be looking for work.

Waiting to hear from people regarding a job or even just to have a preliminary conversation about a job is reminiscent of waiting for a boy to call you for a date. I remember back to the days when we only had landlines and before answering machines existed, dragging my phone as far out of my room as possible whenever I wasn’t in it in order to not miss a call.

Things haven’t changed much, only that it’s easier to keep a phone close at hand. People drop their phones in the toilet all the time. I’m happy to say I haven’t done that yet, but I remember when I first moved to New York and before caller ID, I answered the phone not once, but twice from the bath to speak with someone who turned out to be my future boss – I remember sitting very, very still.

I’m sort of an anti-cell phone person. I have one naturally and I try to take it with me when I can, but I either forget to turn it on, don’t hear it or can’t find it in time to pick up before a call goes to voice mail. It always startles me when it rings and I find it intrusive if I happen to be doing anything but sitting on the couch beside it when it does. I also have trouble with texting. I find it more time consuming than anything else.

In Paris, cell phones work in the metro, which you would think would cause pandemonium, but the French, civilized in many ways, are certainly so when talking on their phones. There’s no screaming and yelling like you hear in New York. Calls seem to have a meaning there and are kept short in public places. Here, they seem to be about nothing at all and the fact that one is surrounded by strangers doesn’t impede in any way sharing the most personal information as audibly as possible. In this case, I would prefer that people text as long as they look where they’re going when they do.

I like to Skype, but you have to make sure you’re presentable if you’ve got the video going. It goes without saying that there’s no Skyping in the bathroom. Emailing makes it easy to hide and gives you the most time to compose yourself before responding. But like texting, it can grow tiresome when a conversation could be much more easily accomplished by a phone call.

We’ve come into an age when the multiple methods to communicate have in a way made it easier to not communicate at all, at least directly that is. And sometimes all that communication can lead to miscommunication. Texting, typing, twittering, it’s all a lot to do with only two hands so maybe that’s why a sheep with five feet is a good thing after all.

Is that my phone that’s ringing…?

Surtout

adv. – above all (or especially)

This is almost a literal translation into English since “sur,” which technically means on can also mean above and “tout” means all. There are many adverbs that are literally translated, “literally” among them as “littéralement.” “Complètement,” “effectivement,” “exactement,” “définitivement,” all sound like their English counterparts, albeit with a “ment” ending vs. a “ly” one. “Definitely,” “totally” and “indeed” can all be covered by “tout à fait,” sort of more loosely defined as all in fact.

Going back to “literally,” I tend to pronounce it in a British way for some reason. This results in a clipped version by placing emphasis on the “t” before the “rally.” Americans tend to roll slowly over the “t” like a speed bump so that all the consonants are used. There’s one word I notice that some American almost pronounce more like a British person and that’s “forward.” There are people who drop the first “r” so it sounds more like “foeward,” but unlike a British person, they pronounce the second “r”, which is what makes it different.

Other people, especially from the Midwest, actually add an “r” where there isn’t one. For example, “wash” becomes “warsh.” New Englanders, like Englanders, tend to drop the “r” – we’ve all heard about “pahking the cah.” Then there’s the interchanging of the “s” and “k” in a word like ask, turning it into “aks.”

“Ask” makes me think of the French word for sit, which is “assis”. I say this a lot to the dog since he learned his commands in French and the other day I noticed for the first time that the word for sit in French actually has the word “ass” in it, which struck me as funny. “Coucher,” which can mean to sleep or lie down (and funnily has the word “couch” in it) is another command word the dog knows. We taught him to sit first and then lie down, rewarding him with treats when he does. Sometimes, even if I just ask him to sit, he’ll go straight to the lie down position as if to say, let’s cut to the chase.

“Avance” means go or advance, if you want to be more literal. “Attend” means wait. These are two other words the dog knows, even though ironically they sound very similar when you say them. The word “no” and “non” also sound the same in both languages, but for some reason, he doesn’t seem to understand either. Truth is the dog doesn’t really understand anything we say to him. It’s more the intonation and inflection that he responds to and of course, the treats. As complex and intriguing as language is, only humans use it to communicate. Animals operate on a simpler level, interacting instinctively and there’s nothing more literal than that.