French object to 'AngloSaxon' reforms

Angles:
[ame=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angles]Angles - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia[/ame]
The Angles is a modern English word for a Germanic-speaking people who took their name from the ancestral cultural region of Angeln, a district located in Schleswig-Holstein, Germany.

Saxons:
[ame=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saxons]Saxons - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia[/ame]
The Saxons were a confederation of Old Germanic tribes.

Both above races had been conquered by:
Normans:
[ame=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normans]Normans - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia[/ame]
The Normans were the people who gave their name to Normandy, a region in northern France.

Franks:
[ame=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franks]Franks - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia[/ame]
The Franks were a West Germanic tribal confederation.

No more comments!

 

An interesting piece.

Here in the USA the French workers experience; 35 hr. work weeks,
long summer vacations/"holidays," relative early retirement, is often
cited as the prescription for our presumably Puritan influenced
tendency to long work weeks with excessive fear driven "voluntary"
unpaid overtime, short vacations (often untaken), and late retirement.

So, emotionally it can be an easy thing to side with the French workers
wanting things not to change, to move towards an "Anglo-Saxon"
model.

It is that term "Anglo-Saxon" that seems unnecessarily abrasive,
damning of untold millions, not just in England but here too. (Perhaps
I'm overly sensitized having both Anglo-Saxon and Irish ancestry. )

I suppose the terms apparent ready use in France to denigrate a new
policy, practice or government program comes from an interplay
between French nationalism and xenophobia. It has more a deep
emotional/mythical subjective appeal than objective meaning.

Example: The term "Irish pennant" is often heard in reference to a
random thread on on otherwise clean and neat appearance. It harkens
back to the wooden hulled sailing ship days of the Royal Navy. It was
meant as a put down of the Irish as a people who were considered to
be wild, unkempt, uncaring about the "proper" way of doing things as
represented by English culture and sea-going traditions.

Ah well, the need to revamp the French retirement system is driven by
economics, not emotions. However, I have to wonder if there is a
special "Gallic" kind of economics based on emotionalism rather than
cold objective data/analysis that will save the day.

 

But a loose piece of thread fluttering about *is* an Irish Pennant. Just like an ugly boat is some "Slab-sided Dutch-built bugger." Can you really blame the English for slovenly Irish tendencies or poor Dutch aesthetics? I don't think so.



(...and for those of our PC members that are too PC, in the other use of PC, I am just kidding, although I do love this sort of terminology. It says more about the culture using the terms than the ones being maligned. Except, of course, for the Dutch, who really did build ugly boats. <Bad Tom. Bad! Must stop saying such things...)

Tom

 

Heh, heh, heh.

Tom, I just knew that you'd rise to the bait.

I would note that there is a huge difference between denigrating an
entire race and pointing out that a country's shipbuilding methods and
aesthetics are strange to one's jaundiced eye -- despite their historic
correctness and success -- are two entirely different matters.

More than likely, the Dutch ship was a lugger.



On the other hand, a member of the crew may well have been a
[ame=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bugger]bugger.[/ame]

 

for some reason, we're always reading about one attemptef french social reform or another. they always go on strike, and we never seem to hear what the results are. are they so different from other european countries, or just more dramatic?

 

Dramatic, I think. Before Haussmann improved the streets of Paris, the French routinely tore up the paving stones and made barricades. Now they go on strike. Maybe it comes from drinking too much wine.

Tom

 

I've always wondered how the French feel about Patrick Stewart playing Jean-Luc Picard, but having a liking for Shakespeare and Earl Grey tea?

 

trust me, there's no such thing as too much wine. not french wine anyway.

 

And a decidedly English accent, besides!