Day 1.195: Choing choing

Although British people are not renowned for their linguistic skills in mainland Europe, most of us learn French as a second language. Fair enough, it is just across the channel and you can get there over, on or under the (rock under the) water these days. Indeed, in my youth we used to take our family summer holidays there. One of our little pleasures was the literal translations of English idioms into French. Whether any of the natives ever heard us I don't know, but one that has stuck with me in the intervening 20 years or so is "faire une oreille de cochon" (make a pig's ear).

So you can imagine my surprise when standing at the checkout in Walmart one day, I saw this product. Oreilles de cochon! I took a very patient but bewildered Exile #3 to a previously unvisited corner of the store where I discovered that they are indeed (and advertise themselves very boldly in English as such) Pig Ears. What dog (or dog owner) could resist such a delicacy?

By the way, the title is what we once overheard a young waiter saying under his breath as he approached us in a restaurant in France having a good English laugh about something. I suppose it epitomised the non-French sounds he heard us making - whether it is a common cliche or his own fabrication I don't know but either way I assume he then went off and had a good hon-hee-hon-hee-hon with his amis about it.