Carbonated French People

I am moments (ok, several long moments strung together in succession ad infinitum) from sending my Yale application -- NYU and Harvard have already gone out -- but I wanted to just say very quickly that I just realized that French people are full of air. Seriously. It's not a cultural critique, but a physical phenomenon that can be empirically observed.

You must know a French person in order to appreciate this observation, and VC only counts for roughly 1/4, so unless you have another friend who is 3/4 French and who I am sitting on, then you need to have a totally French friend other than me...French Canadian does not count, because they are not full of air in the way that I am about to discuss, and I am not sure if the same phenomenon can be observed amongst Belgian Walloon, French-speaking Swiss, inhabitants of Luxembourg, or former French colonies. Here we go -->

Have you ever noticed that French people sometimes attach bursts of air to the end of their words that dwell somewhere between a hiss and a shush? (if they are talking to an American, then they are likely both hissing and shushing) Consider how "oui," or "merci," often become "oui-hhhhh," and "merci-hhhhh," and how "mon dieu" becomes "mon dieu-hhhhh."

I used to think that this was just a French linguistic habit of emphasizing certain vowels at the end of words, but I just got of the phone with a friend, who inserted this trademark French sound *between* two consonants: "Great *hhhhh*. So, pass by my office at one *hhhhh*."

This brought me to the revelation that French people, for a reason still unapparant to me, are full of air, and must spontaneously expel it in order to maintain homeostasis! I hope you all save this post, so that if I don't one day win the Nobel Peace Prize, then we can submit this blog to the Nobel Committee for consideration for the prize in medicine.

VC-hhhhh