Bilingual Anglo-French humor: an analysis

of the potential for humor based on the

interlocking of the two languages
CHRISTOPHER LEEDS, Bt.

Abstract

This paper looks at various forms of Anglo-French bilingual humor, includ-

ing jokes, riddles, and extracts from humorous dialogues and sketches.
Transfers in diverse forms, from one language to another,form important
elements of bilingual humor. The main areas of Anglo-French bilingual
humor cover code switching, language errors, and self-repair strategies;
franglais; punning; and liieral translations. These various aspects are inves-
tigated. One conclusion is the importance of taking into account national
traits and sociocultural factors whichpartly determine the manner by which
bilingual humor has developed in England and France, respectively.
One example of a French-Canadian contribution to bilingual humor is
given, The Heights of Abraham, s this reflects an important aspect ofthe
subject in the context of the two languages. Second, reference is also made
to two works which originated first s American publications, by F. S.
Pearson and Luis Van Rooten, but the focus of this paper is English s
spoken in Britain rather than elsewhere.

Introduction

One reason advanced for the popularity of linguistically based humor is

that language is a rule-based System, and humor thrives on rule violation
at a number of different levels: phonology, morphology, semantics, syn-
tax, and pragmatics (Shultz and Robillard 1980: 59-60). Bilingual humor
involves customary verbal incongruities and ambiguities. Unlike orthodox
unilingual humor, it also includes both unintentional or unconscious
grammatical errors and those made deliberately, associated with foreign-

Humor 5-1/2 (1992), 129-148. 0933-1719/92/0005-0129 $2.00

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130 C. Leeds

language learning. The terms interlingua or interlanguage have been sug-

gested for the type of foreign language spoken by a learner which shows
features both of the target language and other languages, notably his
mother tongue (Corder 1981: 67).
Bilingual humor, for the purposes of this study, is defined s the comic
effect which arises when two languages are related in certain ways. This
frequently occurs when two languages are intermixed together, s in the
case of interlanguage. However, one language can affect another even
when they are kept apart. For example, extracts from two languages may
be placed side by side, with amusing literal or possibly ridiculous
translations being made from one into the other. The bilingual joke has
been said to exist when a foreign word is made to bear the sense of a
word indigenous to the language, whether by homophonic accident, by
homonymic/semantic contrivance, or by literal translation (Nash 1985:
145).
Bilingual humor involves not only set-piece jokes and riddles but a
wide rnge of humorous observations, stories, and incidents scattered
through various published works, recorded in TV/radio broadcasts, or
passed on by word of mouth. Sometimes bilingual humor is also expressed
in pictorial form, for example in comic bopks and Cartoons.1 Much
research has been undertaken on children's humor in recent years
(McGhee and Chapman 1980) and on jokes and riddles in general.
However, bilingual humor presents special problems of its own, and
Anglo-French bilingual humor has not s yet been extensively
researched. Redfern referred briefly to bilingual Anglo-French humor
(Redfern 1984: 164), and this paper provides an introductory study of
this topic.

Historical background

The French and the English have been enriching their respective languages
since the time of the Norman Conquest (1066) with words and expressions
from each other's language. This development provides an important
explanation s to why the potential for bilingual Anglo-French humor is
particularly rieh.
Scope for muddle and confusion over the lexical, morphological, pho-
nological, and semantic aspects exists when the French and British learn
each other's language. At the level of vocabulary it is by no means easy

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to distinguish between identical words with the same meaning (true

friends), s in the case of fable (s a noun) on the one band, and
misleading similarities on the other, including the false friends such s
complaint which does not mean the same s la complainte, and the partial
true friends where meanings only partly overlap.
Up to the eighteenth Century the exchange was largely one way, from
French to English. From the late eighteenth Century the flow of English
words into French exceeded the flow in the reverse direction. Maurice
Rat, literary scholar, dubbed the new imports s 'franglais' in 1959.
However, this word only became well known after the publication of
Parlez-vous Franglaisl (1964) by Sorbonne professor Rene Etiemble.
A story surrounds one particular post-1960 "Franglais" word le pull-
over or le pull, an attempt at populr etymology.
A Frenchman returns from England wearing new garb and explains to a
yokel that it is a pullover. However, s he pronounced the word in a
French manner (pulloverre), it sounded like pullo vert [green pullo]. Later
the yokel sees his second pullover, this time a red one, and exclaims:
"Quel joli pullo rouge!" [What a nice red pullo].
Since the mid-fifth Century English Speakers have expanded their
vocabulary by new words from countries with which they have had
contacts (Frb 1973: 296). In contrast the French have periodically, since
the mid-sixteenth Century, made rigorous efforts to shelter their language
from foreign influence.2 Stringent efforts of the French government to
do this with respect to English words from the early 1960s frequently
provoked humorous articles about franglais in the British press. The
attempt of the French authorities to impose neologisms on the French
such s la commercialisation instead of le marketing seemed contrary to
the spirit with which the English language itself has evolved (Commissar-
iat General 1988). It also limits the possibility of developing bilingual
homophonous diamorphs, words having the same meaning and sounding
the same or similar in both languages.
However, a government should naturally be concerned if its key
national language is being contaminated by that of another country.
Franglais includes not only the direct import of English/American words
into French but barbarisms and various forms of anglicisms, including
calques such s maller une lettre (used by some French-Canadians, taken
from the American phrase 'mail a letter').
In Quebec, French Canadians have been so subjected to the powerful

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132 C.Leeds

influence of English that they sometimes have difficulty in distinguishing

between what is genuinely French and what is not. Beguin (1978) argues
that this unsound bilingualism of theirs is a farce, and Darbelnet (1976)
cites an example. One young Quebecois, totally unaware of le pare-brise,
naively asked bis teacher, "Comment dit-on windshield en anglais?"
Naturally this example is not intended to illustrate Canadian humor
but may still be found amusing. This illustrates the point that humor in
bilingual terms cannot be rigidly demarcated any more than humor in
general. Humor is what people regard s funny, and the English tend to
include under the term "humor" many things others would not. Various
publications, categorized s humor in British libraries, record various
forms of errors, gaffes, misunderstanding, misprints, or howlers. Oxford
News, published by Oxford University Press for English-language teachers
in France, has a regulr extract devoted to howlers. In its Winter 1989
edition it included this contribution from a reader:
There may be a thousand and one ways to lose weight but one of our
readers discovered a very novel technique: an advertisement for a beauty
parlour in Caen offers its clients the chance of "Body Mincing."
Mincing appears to be an example of code mixing (between slimming and
the French word minceur for slimness), but in reality this may be yet
another lexical transfer from English to French or a loan word falling
under the general heading of "franglais."

Code switching and self-repair strategies

Code switching denotes alternate use of two or more languages, varieties

of a language, or even speech styles. The reasons for this have been
explored in numerous publications (Hymes 1977: 103-104) and also the
reasons people resort to code mixing, producing a sentence or phrase
combining two languages (Harding and Riley 1986: 128). Certainly both
forms may be mere self-repair strategies (Corder 1983) adopted by a
second-language learner who may, for example, borrow words from, or
switch to, the native tongue periodically, if he does not know certain
words in the second language or finds them difficult to pronounce (Celce-
Murcia 1978: 51). Another self-repair strategy is literal translation of
words or expressions into another language.
One true story concerns an error made by a six-year-old boy living in

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Lorraine, France. He came from bis French father who was gardening
to ask bis American mother in the kitchen this question:
"Dad wants to know where to plant the streetbeard." She replied: "What
do you mean 'street beard'? Say it in French!" The boy retorted, "La
rhubarbe." [Note that rue "street" is pronounced the same s the rhu of
rhubarbe in French, which predictably means rhubarb in English.]
Self-repair strategies have been increasingly exploited in humor in
Britain, France, and Quebec, whether in written, published form or
television/radio programs.
A British schoolboy joke, or rather howler, concerns the adept pupil
who was asked the following unlikely question:
Teacher: "Translate Tanglais avec son sang-froid habitueF [the Eng-
lishman with bis usual calm/unflappable nature]."
Boy: "Easy. The Englishman with bis usual bloody cold."
Raymond Devos provides an Illustration of avoidance techniques in
one of bis sketches, where pride prevents the two Frenchmen involved
from admitting they cannot speak English and where they seem only
capable of speaking English by means of set or clicheed phrases (Ray-
mond 1976: 127).
Bilingual Speakers are known to be more prone to employ words from
a second language when in relaxed informal surroundings. This point is
made in a humorous bilingual dialogue from The News, a newspaper
destined for the English Community in southwest France (Aunty's Pen
1987). A French neighbor says, "Can I come and ramasse your frogs?"
The use of the word ramasse instead of "pick up" or "collect" illustrates
the tendency to borrow words from a second language without endings
or agreements. Also, ramasse contains two syllables and so is consistent
in rhythm with the two-syllable English equivalent words. The final "r"
of ramasser has been deliberately dropped.
Code switching is sometimes employed merely for humorous effect,
especially in rhyming. There is the famous limerick which Starts with
"there was a young lady of Nantes" and finishes with "I must borrow
the plumes of my tante." One comic verse relates the story of a mother
who put her noisy child in the Frigidaire (French for refrigerator). The
last two lines are s follows:
My wife said, "George Fm so unhappe?
Our darling's now completely/ra/?/^!" [iced up] (Graham 1974).

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4

Edmund Clerihew Bentley (1887-1956) created in 1890 a joking four-

line verse in two Couplets. The humor of one clerihew was reinforced by
the increasingly outrageous rhyme and the shortening rhythms:
Alfred de Musset
Hated bis pusset
When it mieu'd
He mondieu'd.
Mistakes in the spoken or written language provide a fine source of
unconscious or unintentional humor. Frances Edmonds in Another
Bloody Tour mentions an international Conference on artificial insemina-
tion where the French Interpreter translated "frozen semen" s matelots
geles [frozen seamen]. Perhaps the Interpreter had been temporarily at a
loss to find the French equivalent of "semen" instantaneously and had
improvised. Phonemically seamen and semen are the same [si: man].
The French sometimes have difficulty in distinguishing certain sounds
in "minimal pairs" in English s in the case of world/word and shipjchip.
Likewise, English Speakers have difficulty with certain French nasal vow-
els. This provides scope for bilingual humor. The BBC's television Situa-
tion comedy 'Allo 'Allo parodies a previous series called Private Army.
In the new version an English secret agent is disguised s a French-
speaking gendarme. He frequently makes silly mispronunciatins in Eng-
lish involving the changing of some phonemes for others, which also
results in double entendres like "where pissable" instead of "possible."
An important source of French humor is the adult comic book, a sort
of Gallic equivalent of the television "Situation comedy" in Britain.
Sometimes such works do not record a continuous story but a series of
page-length separate episodes based on the same characters. In Ciaire
Bretecher's book Les Meres (1982) one such story takes place in English
mixed up with French expressions which have been partly anglicized.
Examples of the actual dialogue appears in the first column below:
Dialogue used in French expression True English
the story equivalent
1. poting the fire peter le feu to be really fit
2. the choice is le choix vous the choice is
appartening to you appartient yours
The second extract illustrates the use of compound forms, words or
phrases which are from neither language but which provide a clue to the

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 Bilingual Anglo-French humor 135

equivalent word in both languages. "Appartening to" is in between appar-

tient and "belonging to." The same style is apparent in Renaud's song,
"It is not because you are" (1980), where the singer puts French grammat-
ical patterns into English, resulting in various amusing errors. In the first
verse he uses rencontred, an anglification of the French verb rencontrer
by the addition of the regulr verb ending -ed instead of the English
irregulr past tense of "to meet." Rencontred represents an example of
word coinage, inventing a word on the basis of bis knowledge of either
language. Rouler un pelle, vulgr slang for a passionate embrace, repre-
sents borrowing or code mixing:
When I have rencontred you
You was ajeunefille au pair
and I put a spell on you,
and you roule a pelle to me (Renaud 1968).

Franglais humor

Franglais humor is a Variation of code mixing, a brand of British humor

which parodies or spoofs various forms of incorrect French resulting
from the influence of the English language. Consequently, Franglais texts
published in England may occasionally resemble the French spoken or
written by French-speakers subject to the influence of Franglais words
and terms in their daily lives, especially in business. However, they are
more likely to reflect the French spoken by English native Speakers who
resort to various defensive (self-repair) strategies if they are not fully
competent in their second language.
Miles Kington, through numerous articles and books, popularized this
particular form of bilingual humor. In the extract below he uses genuine
French words only but not in their correct context. The two sentences
illustrate the influence of anglicisms and English thought patterns.
J'ai une complainte tres serieuse. Mon adresse est incorrecte dans le
directoire ... quelle redresse pouvez-vous m'offrir? (Kington 1981).
[I have a serious complaint. My address is not correct in the directory ...
what remedy (redresse) can you provide?]
Faux ami English English French
[false friend] meaning word translation
1. le directoire board of directors directory annuaire

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2. ( la) redresse tough redress modification,

redressement
3. la complainte lament (song) complaint plainte f.,
grief m.
Kington is using actual French words but misapplying them in terms of
context; he is following a trend which has been developing in the French
language since about the mid-1960s. This is the tendency for a French
word which sounds like an English word to be used more frequently than
another French word with the same or similar meaning. For example,
opportunite (instead of occasiori) is often used s the French word to
translate the English word "opportunity," even though strictly speaking
it's Sifaux ami or "false friend" (Hagege 1987: 57).
Kington's dialogues in Franglais have varied widely in terms of topics,
style, complexity of language, and language interaction. Although bis
writings are intended almost entirely for enjoyment, clearly he links the
two languages together in a manner reminiscent of what actually occurs.
For example, he intersperses anglicisms and pseudo-calque expressions
such s tes lettres pain-et-beurre [bread-and-butter or thank-you letters]
and jour de pugilisme [Boxing Day] in one text. Code mixing such s
ghastly pour vous, vieux chap or pseudo-Franglais words such s bankers
or mon hrne help to make bis brand of humor appreciated by readers
who have only a basic knowledge of French.3
Leo Ferre's song of the early 1960s in France about a barmaid
illustrates a similar style developed on the other side of the Channel. The
short extract below is purely lexical in form. It makes use of both false
and genuine Franglais words. Under the former are "darling" (ma cherie,
ma copine), "sleep," and "barmaid." Genuine Franglais words are "one
man show," "cash" (le liquide, la monnaie), and "parking." The latter is
a deceptive cognate, afaux ami, since it has changed meaning in passing
into French. Instead of meaning "parking," for which the French use le
stationnement, it has come to mean "car park."
C'est une barmaid qu'est ma darling ...
J'suis son parking, son one man show,
Son Jules, son King, son sleep au chaud,
J'paie toujours cash ...
Jean Loup Chiflet's book Sky my husband! or Ciel mon man!, published
in 1985, provides amusing advice on how to avoid Franglais in France

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 Bilingual Anglo-French humor 137

by adopting a strategy aimed at keeping the two languages apart. He

recommends selecting a French word, incorporating it into a well-known
expression or proverb, and then making a literal translation. An example
is the word chouette "owl," which is also part of the expression C'est
super chouette. It should now be understood to mean in English "It is
super owl" rather than "It's fantastic."

Punning

The extent to which a language can be manipulated verbally depends on

its structure and vocabulary. Sociocultural aspects are also important in
determining the frequency of, and the form taken by, word play. Both
these points are pertinent in relation to the theme of this article.
Both the French and the English use puns widely for humorous effect
in the press, advertising, jokes, and amusing dialogues. A significant
difference exists in their approaches to this form of humor. In Britain a
general belief still persists that punning is a weak form of humor, relying
merely on a verbal connection, and this view tends to be reinforced by
the frequency with which puns are created of a simple form (though not
necessarily linguistically speaking), appreciated especially by children.
Numerous examples are provided in this section of this tendency.
Linguistic (or verbal) humor can be regarded s a major element in
French humor and, far more frequently than in Britain, takes sophisti-
cated or intellectual form. Research into the extensive meaning of Dealern-
bour" found in diverse French publications will substantiate this point.
However, its central meaning, according to Robert (1986) is homophony,
often linked to a string of words together. Numerous publications exist
which analyze the French language at the level of sound, providing
copious examples of phrasal homophones. The sounds represented by
"Lait dans la bouche" can be written differently with at least seven other
meanings (Rosenstiehl and Gay 1985: 33). Frequently the various options
do not make much sense but indicate the interest shown in this aspect of
verbal humor (Blondel 1988: 14, 76).
Nash (1985: 139) believes that French with its syllable timing possibly
creates more favorable conditions for phrasal homophony than English.
Syllable timing in English is based on the interval between stressed
syllables, whereas in French it is based on the syllables themselves. This
makes it easier to combine words phonemically in French. The high

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frequency of open syllables in French s opposed to closed syllables in

English helps this process, s does the rule relating to liaison.
This fact about phrasal homophony means that it is easier in French
to combine punning followed by a literal or alternative translation from
a homophonic Interpretation of the original Statement. This is a particu-
larly sophisticated form of bilingual humor and takes the process one
stage further than that mentioned by Guiraud (1976) and Todorov (1978),
who see puns s "superimposing a second (...) humorous sense upon an
obvious, normal, 'serious' sense" (Attardo 1988: 351).
The following examples are taken from the live show in the 1970s of
the French-Canadian group Les Cyniques. In the programme "Lesplaines
d'Abraham" [the heights of Abraham] they make fun of English-speaking
Canadians. The Speaker first talks in French (first column) and then
follows this after a pause with a ludicrous version in English (last column).
Original French English meaning Alternative French English meaning
Statement meaning
Les Frangais ont The French have Les Fransais ont The French have
vaincu won vingt culs twenty arses
Voici venir la It is getting Voici venir la Here comes the
noirceur dark noire soeur black nun

This form of humor combining phrasal homophony and literal translation

does not come within the scope of Apte's observation that the interlingual
(or bilingual) pun exists where a lexical item from one language is used
that is phonetically similar to a lexical item from another which has a
different meaning (Apte 1985: 181). Note that though this example comes
from Canada it illustrates a populr way the French in general approach
bilingual humor.
Extensive research has been undertaken in the United States, Europe,
and elsewhere, in the last decade especially, on the sociocultural character-
istics of various countries, nationalities, or geographic regions such s
Northern Europe, Asia, America, Latin America, and North Africa,
especially in the context of international marketing and business negotia-
tions. Recently an article in a French magazine (Moci 1989) pointed out
that the portrait of a French businessman was someone who is "methodi-
cal, rational, logical, cartesian." In contrast the English businessman is
described s pragmatic.
Though "sociocultural" considerations of humor do not normally
impinge on linguistic perspectives, they need to be mentioned here, con-
sidering the importance of nonsense humor in England and its link to

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 Bilingual Anglo-French humor 139

certain forms of Anglo-French bilingual humor originating in England.

Konsense is frequently expressed in verse, s in the case of Edward Lear's
limericks, and forms an important element in linguistic humor. Nicolson
argues that the English love of nonsense originales in the Englishman's
dislike of orderly and logical reasoning and a desire for a "release from
the constraint of reason" (Nicolson 1956: 46). In countries where logic
and reason are highly esteemed, the love of nonsense, he argues, appears
infantile.
Nonsense does not have such an important place in French humor
compared to the role it occupies in British humor. It can be argued that
far-fetched or near homophony, s in the case of Marseillaise/Ma says
Yes or Chablis/Shabbily, or rather nonsensical or childish parallels such
s Mayonnaise equals the French National Anthem, appeal more to the
British mind than to the French. This may explain why most of the
infantile simple puns tend to originate in Britain rather than in France.
Nicolson has pointed out that the English like the less intellectual form
of word play, which is based "not so much upon a similarity of meaning,
s upon the fanciful association of sounds. This specifically English
amusement represents a childish, and not an adult, combination of sim-
ilarities" (Nicolson 1956: 35).
In contrast the French often develop the pun to some purpose. Political
humor is an area also extensively developed in France, and recently the
French satirical magazine Le Canard Enchame (28 June 1989) made fun
of Britain's vacillating policy towards the Single Market preparations
under Mrs. Thatcher with the following headline:
HOW DO YOU DOUZE? VERY WELL SAN VOUS.
The implication of the wording, combining code mixing and punning,
is that the group of twelve will survive if necessary without Britain's
participation.
Children's humor, in publications for or about children, is particularly
well developed in Britain, and this added to the love of play and nonsense
generally may explain why such a wide rnge of Anglo-French bilingual
puns have been created of special interest to children or the young in
heart. In addition the frequent resort to imperfect homophony, sometimes
known s "corny puns," is aided by the wide rnge of accents in Britain
at the spoken level and also by the tendency of the Southerners to smudge
unaccented vowels, for instance lesson and lessen. Much depends on how
people pronounce or stress their words, and in some cases quasi homo-

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phones could be genuine homophones. A good Illustration of this can be

found in the BBC radio program called ITMA ... during the Second World
War:
Tommy Handley: It does not pay anyone to dress shabbily.
Colonel: Chablis, sir? A glorious wine! I don't mind if I do (Nicholson
1956: 58).
Although the word shabbily contains three syllables, the stress is so weak
on the "i" that it sounds the same s the two-syllable French word
"Chablis."
Jokes involving verbal word play find their source of humor at the
juncture of sounds, where the difference between two groups of words is
only distinguishable through stress and Intonation, and because of the
context. Cases in point are an aim/a name and I screamjice cream in
English. Examples are far-fetched bilingual jokes which play on the
homophony of words from French and English which sound like "mini-
mal pairs" s in insane/in Seine; Okay/au quai\ mercy/merci; may wejmais
oui. The fourth joke just mentioned is s follows:
There was a class having a lesson, and one boy said:
"Miss, can we do French now?"
The teach replied, "Mais oui."
The boy said, "Sorry, may we do French now?"
The teacher said mais oui 'certainly,' but the boy misinterpreted the
teacher's acquiescence in bis request s a correction of bis grammar.
Possibly, the teacher used the wrong Intonation. In "may we" the stress
is on "may," followed by a falling Intonation. Alternatively, the pupil
may have failed to distinguish between the Intonation of "may we" and
that of mais oui, which has a rising Intonation.
Stress and juncture are important in relation to the joke about three
French cats where quatre, cinq "four, five" is homophonous with cats
sank, when the latter is pronounced quickly. Ellipsis occurs, so that the
"s" (bound morpheme) of cats disappears.
Once upon a time in winter three French cats, called Un, Deux, and
Trois, went skating on a pond. The ice gave way and Un, Deux, Trois
cats sank.
The following joke is unusual in that the humor of the punning involved
only becomes manifest when the listener has worked out the French for

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 Bilingual Anglo-French humor 141

"to the water. It's time" and has in addition gathered that A l'eau, c'est
l'heure sounds like "Hallo Sailor."
Napoleon believed he would capture Nelson and asked an officer what
he should say in English on meeting the famous Admiral. The officer,
knowing that Napoleon had problems with his English pronunciation,
eventually had a brainwave. "Sire," he said "it's easy. You just say in
French to the water. It's time."
Bilingual riddles provide special problems since the respondent has to
think simultaneously in two languages to work out a suitable answer.
The riddle about Mitterrand's breakfast provides a clue for those able to
switch laterally from an egg to the French equivalent un oeuf and then
back to English to find a homophonic equivalent, "enough."
Question: Why does Mitterrand only have one egg for breakfast?
Answer: Because un oeuf is un oeuf.
A rarer form of bilingual humor occurs when a pun can be made on
a word identical in form in two languages, nor merely a homograph but
a cognate word and paronym. In the following far-fetched joke, only
really appreciated when written rather than when heard, a jump is made
from the meaning and pronunciation of a word in one language to a
different meaning and pronunciation in another language.
Teacher: Ou est le pain, Tommy? [Where is the bread, Tommy?]
Tommy: Le pain is in my knee, Miss.
The "pain" joke has a striking quadripartite structure rather like a
Chiasmus with Inversion taking place in the second part of the joke. It
illustrates total disjunction of two unrelated remarks, though tied together
through a word similar in form meaning "bread" in French and "physical
suffering" in English.
"Franglish" is a game involving an English Stimulus word for which
it is necessary to find an English synonym which has identical spelling
with a French word of a different meaning, s in the following: depres-
sion = dent "tooth" (Kirschenblatt-Gimblett 1976: 195).
Nash supplies a story relating to a snippet of dinner-table conversation.
One guest comments on the prettiness of one of the waitresses:
A: That's a dolly bird! Eh!
B: I believe she comes from the Seychelles.

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142 C. Leeds

C: Aha! A Seychelloise.
D: A Seychelloiseau (Nash 1985: 145).

The pun gradually unfolds s the move is made from bird to woman and
oiseau. The connecting link is -oise, sometimes added to the end of a
French place name to denote a female inhabitant of that area, and in the
case ofLilloise, a woman from Lilie. Oise invites associations with oiseau.
This form of word play is not only phonological but morphological, the
deliberate manipulation of word shapes.
Another form of bilingual punning involves making an outrageous
English Version of a French word or phrase which usually but not always
bears a vague phonological resemblance to the original. F. S. Pearson
called this "fractured French" when he collected a rnge of examples in
two small illustrated publications published first in the United States and
then in Britain (Pearson 1951, 1952). Since then "fractured French" has
appeared in a rnge of children's publications, the basic format being s
appears in the first and third columns below.4 Usually interlanguage
pseudo-homophones are used, s in examples 1-7 below. However, other
elements are included s well. For example, the English version given in
the text (third column) does not always coincide with the quasi-homo-
phonic version of the original. Consequently the description "word associ-
ation/extended homophony" is used here to describe examples 2-5 and
"association of ideas" for 6. Example 8 involves no phonological aspects
whatsoever but combines characteristics nevertheless of 6 (translation)
and 2-5 (association of words or ideas).
French version English English version Homophonie Type of
in book meaning in text equivalent humor
1 je t'adore I adore you shut the Homophony
door
2 pas du tout not at all father of pa of two father/pa;
twins word assoc.,
extended
homophony
3 poussiniere ducken the cat's in puss is in
coop there there
4 Marseillaise mother says mother says
OK yes
5 aux quais? to the docks how about it okay?
6 coup de coup de lawn mower cut the association
grce grce (la tondeuse) grass of ideas;
extended
homophony

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 Bilingual Anglo-French humor 143

7 femme de housewife a woman of translation

menage my age woman/femme
+ homophony
8 bonne nuit good night night nurse translation
night/nuit+
bonne/maid/

Fractured French illustrates English "playfulness" in humor and love of

fanciful associations of sounds in English extended to include similar
sounds in French.
A form of humor similar to fractured French appears in the collection
of Mother Goose rhymes in Mots d'heures: gousses, rames by Luis Van
Rooten (1968). The words make little sense in French, s in the case of
the title: "Words of hours: pods, oars." The work is only intelligible if
read in English with a French accent.
In the 1970s the French produced a poster depicting the so-called
average Frenchman Monsieur Dupont complete with beret (never
really typical French headgear except for a short period in the 1930s), a
moustache, T-shirt, and manteau, transformed in effect into a French
"superman" with a large forefinger pointing at the viewer. The caption
OUINIDE FOt/pronounced in a French fashion is phonetically identical
with the English "WE NEED YOU" (on a besoin de vous). Behind the
simplicity of the exhortation is the allusion to the First World War British
army poster entitled "YOUR COUNTRY NEEDS YOU," an Illustration
of structural mimesis s well s of a variant of bilingual punning.
Since the early 1980s the tendency of French or British businesses to
borrow words from each other's language has increased in relation to
advertising. One poster in London advertised Janneau, a brand of Grand
Armagnac, which is a variety of brandy.

"Rather more Janneau Sait Quoi than mere brandy Grand

Armagnac."

In this case the homophony involves only French phrases, Janneau sait
quoi (literally, "Janneau knows what") and Je ne sais quoi, a French term
sometimes employed in English. Ambiguity in advertising attracts atten-
tion and helps to seil a product. The one-liner ad makes a parodic allusion
to the expression "It has a certainye ne sais quoi" often used with relation
to perfume, gastronomic dishes, and plays which have a certain undefin-
able quality.

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144 C. Leeds

The juvenile joke below exists also in France, with the English words
being naturally in French and the phrase Je ne sais pas being in English.
Teacher: Tommy, what is the English for "Je ne sais pas"?
Tommy: I don't know.
The joke violates Grice's conversational maxims concerning the value of
clarity rather than obscurity (Grice 1975: 46). The ambiguity arises
because the pupil does not preface bis reply with "It means ..." so two
interpretations are possible depending on whether the word "I" is being
used in a general theoretical sense s part of the correct answer to the
question, or specifically with reference to the Speaker who expresses
ignorance. Resort to disambiguation makes the two meanings clear when
expressed in reported speech: he says that it means "I don't know"; he
says that he doesn't know.
One riddle goes s follows:
Q: What is the definition of a talk with an idiot?
A: Tete--bete.
The reply above packs two meanings in Condensed and modified form
into a new word. Such portmanteau words are discussed in detail by
Freud (Freud 1960 [1905]: 19, 25). The French term tete--tete [private
two-person conversation] exists also in English, while bete is a homograph
meaning both "animal" and "stupid." Frb gives examples of English
words which originated s blends, a combination of two other words
(Frb 1973: 307).

Conclusion

The nature of a language determines the capacity with which its Speakers
can indulge in verbal humor. The French language is better suited than
English for certain forms of word play, s in the case of phrasal homoph-
ony. At the bilingual level this quality can effectively be exploited for
humorous effect through a literal translation of one of the meanings
conveyed by a calembour, s in the case of the examples provided by Les
Cyniques. Straightforward bilingual Anglo-French phrasal homophony
is best achieved otherwise if imperfect, s in the case of un oeuf est un
oeuf/enough is enough. Such links sound plausible to English nonpurists
because of the wide rnge of nonstandard (Received Pronunciation)
accents in Britain.

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 Bilingual Anglo-French humor 145

The frequency with which a country indulges in verbal humor and the
form it takes depend partly on sociocultural and historical factors. The
latter are also important influences on how Anglo-French bilingual humor
has developed.
Franglais humor became populr in Britain partly because of the
seriousness with which certain French people regarded the mass Invasion
of their language by English words from the late 1950s. The problem is
compounded by the similarities in terms of vocabulary between the two
languages, a Situation which does not apply to other languages which
have also been infiltrated by English words since the 1950s. Franglais
humor mirrors this reality, or in other words the tendency of French
financiers, businessmen, and journalists to use English or English-sound-
ing words rather than French ones. It also reflects genuine problems
experienced by both the French and the English when learning each
other's languages in distinguishing between the false and true friends
which hinder or help them at the vocabulary stage.
The French are particularly adept at verbal humor since the intellectual
tradition or way of thinking is particularly admired in France. Chiflet's
Sky my husband and the style of French humor illustrated by Les Cyniques
(a French-Canadian group) are subtle forms of counterattack by French
Speakers against the growth of English words in their language. Both
these forms of bilingual humor represent devices to keep the two lan-
guages apart.
The English are reputed to be fond of nonsense, the fanciful association
of sounds, and the form of humor often found in children's jokes. This
partly explains why it is easier to find the less subtle and simpler forms
of bilingual humor among English sources than among French. Fractured
French and a number of English-created bilingual jokes such s le pain/
pain and sang froid/bloody cold (previously cited) depend on neither
punning nor literal translations but on either fancifulness in sound associ-
ations or the ridiculous, if humorous all the same, translations from one
language into another.
Code switching, self-repair strategies, and amusing language errors,
while important in Anglo-French bilingual humor, are also major charac-
teristics of bilingual humor in general and so are less dependent on
sociocultural factors related to the interaction between two languages.

University ofNancy II

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146 C.Leeds

Notes

1. Lack of space prevents discussion of cartoons in this paper. An example

would be James Thurber's fencing cartoon from the New Yorker Magazine,
where someone has just had his head sliced off. The caption reads "Touche!"
2. Notably since the time of Henri Estienne, lexicographer and author of De la
precellence du langage fran^ais (1579), and also 1637, when the Academie
Francaise was founded. Other countries also created academies involved in
language purification, s in Italy (1582) and Spain (1713).
3. See Kington (1982: 73, 1985) Others have written Franglais dialogues, includ-
ing Alan Goren, former editor of Punch.
4. Examples 2, 3, 4, and 7 come from Pearson (1951), and 5 and 8 from Pearson
(1952). Examples 3 and 6 are from Kington (1981).

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