Watch your language

 I love the English language. It has some wonderful words to describe events, people, places. Sometimes, though, I think that we are losing out on all it has to offer. Messages are shortened to the minimum: How R U? Does this question prompt me to answer in full or to just write back "Fine"? 

When I was going to secondary school - yes, a long time ago now, I'll admit - we had to write three essays in English, Irish (Gaelic) and French every weekend on a subject chosen by the teacher. Not only that, but we had what was sometimes called "comprehension" exercises. We read a passage from a renowned English writer or poet and we had to explain what it said in our own words. A very useful exercise for understanding text. I shall always be grateful that I learned this, learned to articulate and to write primarily in English (my mother language). I also learned to appreciate other languages. And my love of reading, formed at home and deepened in school, has never left me.

I'm not going to start comparing things today as they were when I was growing up. But I do wish that the expression "up for grabs" to describe an open job position, for example, was not used almost exclusively. Jobs are not up for grabs, they are open for applications. "Up for grabs" conjures up carnival with children scrambling for sweets tossed into the crowd from carnival floats.

Another term, now commonly used and no less eye-rolling to me, "so-and-so was slammed for..." Slammed? That sounds like something out of a wrestling match. Isn't the word criticised a better choice? Why don't we use it?

And coffee to go. Yes, grab your coffee in your cardboard container and run with it. Why relax and share a chat over a cup of coffee in a cozy cafe? 

Life is to be enjoyed wherever and whenever possible, so we don't need to jump and grab at job opportunities, nor do we need to slam someone when we don't agree with what they say. Let's bring back a bit of elegance to our daily lives.

Edge of the Seat Foreign Film

 I watched a film on BBC4 the other night, English title Full Time (A Plein Temps) and found it riveting. I'm not sure why it had me on the edge of my seat, it was in many ways simply a chronicle of how to survive: Julie is a mother of two, her ex-husband is late paying alimony, her child carer is starting to find it too difficult to take the children every day. The train strike which complicates an already fraught situation, is what makes this film so edgy. Julie lives in a small village on the edge of Paris. Every morning, she drops her children off at the carer's, an elderly lady in the village who tells her that her daughter considers the children are too much for her, and dashes to the train station, where an annoucement informs passengers that all trains to Paris are cancelled and will be replaced by buses. There follows the mad dash to find the correct bus to bring Julie to work. She is employed as head maid in a posh Parisian hotel. She needs the money to keep afloat. 

A university graduate, she is searching for a job more suited to her qualifications and which would give her more money. Meanwhile, her ex-husband is not returning her frantic calls to ask him why he hasn't paid any alimony this month. The hot water boiler works on and off so that having a shower or washing hair is problematic. The children play her up. And the transport strikes get worse.

Finally she gets an interview for a marketing job in Paris.  Getting to the interview is a mad juggle of her housekeeping duties at the hotel and besting the train strike, the congested traffic and the lack of taxis in Paris. Julie is not a heroine in the Hollywood sense of the word, she is blessed with that quality of pragmatism which the French possess in abundance and although down, she is never out.

Yes, I sat on the edge of my seat and rooted for Julie, my heart in my mouth in case she didn't make the train home or couldn't get to the interview or didn't get the job. By the time the film was over, I was a nervous wreck. That night, I dreamt I was lost in Paris and couldn't find my way home on the Metro.  You might argue that there is nothing remarkable about the story, but the acting is superb and the tension practically pulses through the scenes. Rarely have I been so caught up in a film.

I read that the film, released in 2021, has been a huge success in France, so I guess it's not only me who got hooked. At any rate, a film well worth seeing. In fact, a film which nearly every single mom will identify with. There - I've finished a sentence on a preposition. That's what watching French films does for you.