Reading Poirot in French speaking English with a French accent

I decided to learn French, so I got some Agatha Christie books in French translations because I figured they'd be more fun to study than lists of imperfect verbs. And, as far as her books go, once you learn the words for "murder", "kill", and "little gray cells", you're basically fluent.

(What stinks is that you still have to look up those imperfect verbs; I was so sure I had outsmarted them.)

It was only after reading two Poirot mysteries in French that I remembered that one of his signature quirks, along with his enormous ego and his flourishing mustache, is his charmingly-phrased Franglish. He's Belgian, of course, and speaks English with a French accent. So I'd been reading his Franglish in French as translated from English.

Way to learn a language, Me!

I read Temoin Muet, then not long after I finished it I stayed in a bed and breakfast that had an old Christie paperback on the bedside table in my room, and lo and behold: it was Dumb Witness. In English! Bon chance! I told my vacation to screw off and sat there and read the book to see what I'd missed. It turns out: not much. If you want to feel a false sense of fluency really quickly, learn French the Christie way.

But I did miss the accents. Agatha is not shy about the Upstairs/Downstairs mental gap -- she's always going on about how dumb the maids are, and in English they speak in broad slang-filled accents. I didn't notice that in French, but I was pretty busy congratulating myself in my head like this: "Tuer -- to kill! That means to kill! I AM SO FRENCH!"

One thing about Dumb Witness made no sense in Temoin Muet (Clue Spoiler!): the victim leaves a pre-tuer clue by mumbling on about a "dessin vaste". Drawing vast? Big drawing? Wide design? Lady, I know you're dying, but that makes no sense. It turns out to be a misunderstood word; vase instead of vaste. She's referring to a design on a vase that sort of proves that she knew that someone was trying to kill her. Wicked clever wordplay, right?

Not in French, it isn't. That was the translator's way of dealing with the English word "ajar". The victim babbles about something being "ajar", so there's all this speculation about her door being ajar while her killer skulked around. But it turns out that she's talking about the fricking vase again in our English alterna-verse, her vase or her urn, or her JAR. So look at the drawing on the jar, dummies! Someone tuer-ed me!

And that's what got lost in translation. That and the fact that everyone says things "dryly" in her books, which sounds a lot dumber as "un ton sec".

If someday you and I have a conversation in French and I sound like a Belgian detective, you'll know why.

I will break your "bio break" over your head while you urinate

Some companies are announcing during meetings that they will be taking a "bio break". That means you are invited to use the break time to urinate and/or defecate and/or menstruate. And/or masticate.

These are companies created by adults that employ adults, although it's possible that there are some gigantism-suffering preschoolers in these meetings, maybe working in Nap Development.

Let's take a break, my fellow adults. Do whatever you want with your grown up break. Please don't tell me what you're going to do during this break, not even using cute words and especially not if it involves your tummy or your rude tube.

I blame Oprah.

"Thanks to the smartness of my intellect, I'm rich."

Thanks to anonymous commenting on the internet, I'm rich in quotes.

Please feel free to use this scavenged sentence in your daily life, preferably at the height of a self-righteous tirade.