A humble linguistic inquiry: What does "C'aillez" mean??? Is it Spanish?

Roll up your pants legs - its getting real deep!

C'aillez is the retort French parents always give their kids as in 'it's over'. When a kid is getting out of hand, a stern c'aillez is usually enought to get the point across.

<b>AAFrequentFlyer</b> : did you hear the &quot;pop!&quot; this morning when you freed your head from your tailend? I think not.

READ the following excerpts which prompted my post:

Author: PalQ
Date: 12/01/2004, 03:58 pm
Message: &quot;I just returned from the UK...&quot;

Author: mamc
Date: 12/01/2004, 04:40 pm
Message: You just returned from Europe where you saw girls playing volleyball topless in Munich?

Now here's a question: why would anybody want to play volleyball topless? (Unless it is an exhibition game, of course.)

I personally believe that television is both stupid and vulgar--and that is why we haven't had one for 9 years. I occasionally watch tv in hotels, and of course the kids watched at their friends' homes (of two in college, one has a tv and one doesn't). Television in Europe is also stupid and vulgar, but even more so. But it always HAS been--the medium lends itself to vulgarity. In the 70's I watched a &quot;family feud&quot; type show in Holland in which one family tried to &quot;out fart&quot; the other----this is no joke or exaggeration. There's no sense of propriety on t.v. Instead of complaining about that, however, I just don't have one. We haven't felt left out because we don't have that one big connection to popular culture---which, by definition, is not enduring or substantial.

By European standards I am a prude. I don't want to see topless bathers, but instead of complaining about it I simply stay away from the beaches. It seems to me that OP is suggesting that American prudes are moral vigilantes. Perhaps some are--but that may have more to do with their politics/social agenda than their morals.

At least you can count on Fodor-ites to go without their bluejeans in Europe.

I have been on some beaches in Europe where I wished the bathers laying and prancing about had been more modest. Public nudity is not always a good thing to watch.

If women's frontal nudity is routine on network TV in the UK, why not male frontal nudity?

&quot;&quot;&quot; Now graft and corruption in a public office-holder to me is totally unacceptable and this is one area where i think we Americans have the upper morality hand.&quot;&quot;&quot;

Are you on crack ? Who finances politicians in America ? Why would big business make huge donations to campaigns if not to corrupt the political process ?

I also find it strange that some people take the moral high ground in the country that produces the most pornography, allows handguns, has a gang culture in certain areas, has funded the overthrow of regimes, had segregation, etc etc. I could continue.

I just had to get that off my chest.

My personal perception is that the USA in general is more conservative than Europe.

Just for the record,

PalQ, sorry but that's &quot;&ccedil;a y est&quot;. I did not understand at first what you meant by &quot;C'aillez&quot; but then realized. &quot;&ccedil;a y est&quot; literally meanins &quot;it-there-is&quot;.

&quot;Look, the US is simply bigger, which means there's more of everything, including more morons. And because the morons shout, they tend to drown out the intelligent people, which the USA also has more of. Unless you believe the Hubble telescope was built by the audience of the Ricky Lake show, that is.&quot; (author Terry Pratchett, in an interview)

Hmmmmmmmm. Thank you. I think.

kappa and PalQ:

Well I wondered if &quot;ca y est&quot; was what was meant.

By what miracle of retention of utterly useless titbits from my childhood do I remember the advice that my high-school principal -- a dry, severe man we called The Grey Shadow&quot; -- gave us, sans translation, on graduation in 1969? It was a quotation from some deceased French worthy:

&quot;Si ca y est, ca y est. Si ca n'y est pas, faut recommencer. Tout le reste est de la blague.&quot;

which I translate freely as:

&quot;If you've got it right, you've got it right. I you've got it wrong, start over. The rest is a breeze.&quot;

BTW: In what English-language high-school of today would a principal assume that every graduate would be able to translate that sentence?

Not exactly in topic, but within the same context. I have a very hard time trying to explain to my children why mothers and sons and fathers and daughters kiss each other lips in American movies. Is it a normal practice in the US or am I just watching the wrong movies?

Who would be ignorant enough to assume that everyone in a particular high school would be able to speak French (or German, or Russian, or Arabic, or Korean, or.....)--unless it was the only foreign language taught and everyone was required to take it?

French is not a foreign language in Canada.

Um, lobo - what movies are you watching? It is not common practice for families to kiss each other on the lips in the US, at least not where I've grown up and lived - the northeast and now the mid-Atlantic. I can't think of a movie where I've seen this, either, off hand, so maybe you are watching the wrong movies! :)

Karen

I was amused by a comment I heard (can't remember where) on the Janet Jackson incident, about people getting upset by a few seconds' sight of a breast in the middle of 3 hours of extreme violence :-)

Message: French is not a foreign language in Canada

English is a foreign language in some parts of the UK.

While sneaking my daily peek into Fodors during working hours, coworkers are wondering why I'm having so much fun reading!
Ira your humor wins hands down!

Thank you, Zee.

Without choosing a side of the original poster's question, I suggest reading Kathleen Parker's commentary on the &quot;broken window syndrome&quot;. If it isn't in your regular reading, you can find it at: http://www.townhall.com/columnists/k.../archive.shtml

interesting,,,particularly when you hear some people talk about how overly stiff and formal Europeans can be...i guess thats just the ones that wear clothes?

Thanks, kappa, for figuring out what C'aillez was supposed to be. It had me totally stumped and rooting around in French dictionaries. I thought maybe someone had made a verb out of the word for quail and stuck in an apostrophe!

As a Canadian, i assure you that in the majority of Canada, French is very much a foreign language. We learn colors and numbers and a few basic phrases in school, but that's about it.

abbynicole...&quot;colors?&quot; I assume you mean colours, or are you from that part of Canada that is a blue state?

You can count me in for listening to naked boobs, too. ((a)) ((b))

we spell it both ways in western canada - I've never been corrected for spelling it 'colors'

Replying and wondering if I'm a &quot;neo-con&quot; or some other label bantered about here....
The Kathleen Parker article is very good. Kind of a variation of the &quot;slippery slope&quot; concept. I for one am glad that, whether it be morality or civil liberties (often seen as two different sides of the spectrum), that there are those who stand up against erosion. Yes, positions taken by the ACLU or the far right can be absurd, but that doesn't mean they shouldn't be discussed and they may have other, more subtle, validity (ok, not all the time!).
Pal, I don't know if you are just trolling for responses, but I don't think even Hillary would agree the Clinton scandal can be compared to an open relationship permitted (at least tacitly) by an understanding spouse. And I think you may find, in many instances, that governance is influenced negatively by personal choices or scandals.
Socr: I'd be interested in who you think the vociferous groups are? I would suggest they shift as the media plays to its perceived audience (and, to its own bias, sometimes). The Blue staters (or at least anti-Bush people) were very visible pre-election. The anti-Bush sentiment in the news calmed with his strong election results, but I think it is already creeping back in. It can't stay away long, b/c (a) it makes for divisive but passionate news (and they say it is Bush who divides (doesn't anyone remember the 90s?)); and/or (b) it is a position held largely by those who report the news.

Kappa: well they didn't teach me very good francais in school either; though i studied French for 4 years in high school and at the hotty-tottie U of M i could barely speak understandable French though i could read it well enough to muddle thru Candide. It's only when i spent summers in France babysitting my young French son that i began to pick up the language, but as my ex-wife says, i speak like a six-year old child. Anyway ca y'est i heard over and over and used it often never realizing what it technically meant from a translation point. To me it means 'that's enough, it's over' but i'm sure it means other things as well. Anyways Kappa thanks for correcting me - i thought c'aillez because maybe it came from 'there it goes' which is also probably an incorrect translation. Salut!

one of the buzz phrases after the election was people were &quot;voting for moral reasons&quot; - that they were against gay marriage. Bush would not have won without pandering to the religious right. Interesting that George did come out in for support of civil unions (had to appease Dick) - and the religious right was not pleased. Spain is now considering gay marriage despite that catholic church's disapproval - it's only a matter of time when all of Europe will embrace gay marriage. (and no the world will not come to an end - you can leave that to the religous fantatics, thank you very much)

WOW! With the deletion of NYCFoodSnob's post, mine kinda stands out there with no meaning. I was just 2nd-ing her original comment. ((a)) ((b))

It is a shame that at least some of the beaches in the states can't be set aside for those who wish to go nude.

Perhaps if there were more nude beaches in the states, it would give more people a chance to experience going &quot;au natural&quot;

<b>fehgeddaboudit</b>

I thought you actually just missed the German reference, but now I know that if anybody has to take their head out of their behind it may just be you. You must not be the brightest star in your family if you missed this part of the original post:


<b>In Germany I saw teens playing volleyball topless in a park. Or Munich's Englischer Gartens, which on a nice day has hundreds of nude bathers laying and prancing about.</b>


Have a wonderful day! :-)

You can find one very famous, very nice textile-optional beach here in Vancouver - Wreck Beach. It's an excellent spot for hiking - and not because of the humans. Plus, people often have various forms of protest or fundraising that involve public nudity. But as my husband points out, somehow no one seems to want to protest nude in January. Wonder why.

&gt;It is a shame that at least some of the beaches in the states can't be set aside for those who wish to go nude.&lt;

For those who might be interested, google &quot;nude beaches united states&quot;. You will find more than a few dozen.

I wonder if there are any in US that are truly public, not so fenced off hideaways to keep perverts out? Holland for example has stretches of its popular beach in Zandvoort officially labeled nudism OK. It's not that there are nude beaches or nudist clubs here, i remeber looking at nudist club magazines in the drug store when i was in high school in the 60s - 'naturalism' has a long and storied history in the US; public nudity is still a no-no that will put you on the sex offender list forever in many locales.

I'm surprised those dear editors were so heavy handed. It's not like I called the OP an idiot, well sort of.

As long as the editors read what I write. That's enough pleasure for me. I have a feeling some folks at fodors corp. appreciate my take on things in spite of all the complaints. The fact that Budman got to read and respond is icing on my titty cake.

Ira,

There are VERY few legal nude beaches in the states. There are some beaches were nudity has been the custom but nudity on the beaches remains technically illegal.

It would be nice if &quot;more than a few dozen&quot; beaches really were legal for nude sunbathing.

I should have batted my eyes faster, or closed them sooner, when I saw an older, heavy, topless woman <u>running</u> across the beach at Cannes once. It was not a pretty sight.

<b>AAFrequentFool</b> : I read it all correctly the first time. You're having a semantics issue with yourself.
Having &quot;just returned from the UK&quot; does <u>not</u> mean that PalQ &quot;just returned&quot; from Germany.
Who in your family is helping you log on?