Académie française

Did you know that also in French you can say 'ciao!' to mean goodbye? 'Salut is more common, and functions like 'ciao' does in Italian (you can use it for either hello or good'bye) but 'ciao' works as well.

I discovered while teaching French the other day that the preferred spelling is apparently "tchao", though. That's how it's spelled in the book I'm teaching from. My student stared at it for a solid minute before going, "wait... what's that?" and then I had to explain about the Académie Française - this group of people who are in charge of preserving the French language and ensuring that it is not sullied by any foreign words - and how sometimes they are a bit extreme.

For example, everyone in the world says "envoye-moi un mail" to mean email. But the correct word presenting in my business french book? "Courriel". It actually took me a good month to figure out that this was a blend between the words "courrier" (mail) and electronic. So, in effect, it is exactly the same thing as email, but reversed and in French.

A bit silly, if you ask me.

P.S. My search for tights continues. I found some in Oviesse that were a color called naturale the other day - sounds promising, no? But they didn't have them in my size. Still... there is hope.