New Britain herald., 1918-05-10
AMERICAN FRENCH
 AS SHE IS SPOKE
Mysterious Noises From Threats
 Of Fighting Men :.


 They means our American sol diers overseas. The people of France ! have given this new name to the weird and incohercnt noises the boys in kha- i kl make under the impression that they arc using the best of Parisian 'parlcN.' All the same, our soldiers usually manage to get what they want.
 How the American soldiers are l learning to speak French. the mistakes they make and the dilemnas their is- norance of tho language leads them ] into, are amusingly told in the follow 1 ing extracts from letters written by d ! Young Mems Christian association 1 worker overseas.
 Soldier Learns ''Wec, Wee" Means
 I've Haven't Any More.''
 Tt is amusing to sec our troops try ! ing to converse with the townspeople. l One of the officers told me that in a { letter he censored, one of tho men | wrote to his girl, We're picking up 1 French very rapidly. We've already l learned that Wee, wee means we 1 haven't any more
 One afternoon down in the village l one of the men came up to me and 1 said, Y ou speak French, don't youo' | l replied that l could speak it just a 1 little. Then he said, I wish you'd | o over there that's got my pants, and I 1 can't seem to make her understand l that I've got to have 'em for inspec- 1 ton this afternoon I asked, Whats l she doing with your pants?' and found | that she'd just been washing them for l him. l went over with him, and got | off a hesltating 'Ou est se& Dantalon? | There ensued a perfect torrent of ! words, none of which meant anything | to me. So I tried out my idea of | When will he get them? 9 in French | She evidently had caught on to the 1 idea that her French didn't convey anything to us, so she went through l vigorous motions illustrating washing i and then pointed to the sky, There upon the soldier said, oh, I get her now. She means she's washed them l and cant get them dry until the sun comes out, Much obliged. Nothing doing today. I asked what he'd do about inspection, and he said he guessed he try to borrow a pair.
 "A good deal of this sort of thing l reminded me of tho drawing of Cap 1 tain Bairnsfather, the British officer l who has done such great work draw 1 ing cartoons, I find, along the British l front. He has one picture of q placid | Tommy gazing at a French porter at tired in the customary long smock The Tommy-called Alf-has asked a 1 simple question, to which the porter has replied with a five-minute orat.on l in French And the Tommy says, | That's all right, Now how does the 1 chorus go?
 "I Can Talk French Enough to Get
 Things to Eat" Soldier Says.
 T had a room in the village with 1 some people who sold cakes and fruit to our men, and one afternoon I met | 8 young enlisted man in the hall. He l had bag of plums under his arm, ana some money in his hand. and l 1 stopped, thinking I might have to help 1 out with my pigeon French. oh, l can get along all right he said. T 1 can talk enough to get something to ! eat
 Then he turned to the girl. and said | i'll regular Broadway English, Say, 1 got any gingerbread? :? to which she 1 answered, 'Ah, oui. Well, trot some | out, will your As she darted into the ! kitchen for the gingerbread, I went i on upstairs, lost in admiration of his ! modern French.
 "There is a story going the rounds 1 of 8. sign in a, Paris restaurant, Wanted, American walters who can speak French Someone asked the proprietor why he didn't get French | walters if he wanted French spoken. He replied, oh, don't mean that. I mean american French
 'J ate at officers mess in the 1 house of a FrenchWoman about 50 | years old One of the troops was de- tailed as her assistant. He was q young Southerner from Tennessee who had enlisted as soon as the war broke , out at IT years old. I would sit It | breakfast and hear the converse ton going on in the kitchen--Madamo with a perfect torrent of French, and Hudson in English, with his slow Southern drawl. We tried to carry on a conversation with Madame ourselves with much referring to dictionaries, Hudson would stand by, end when we just looked blank after one of her tor rents, he'd say, That's all right. She just wants to know whether your friend is coming to supper tonight
 Moonshiner Wants to Take Steel Hell
 met Home After tho War.
 The men I worked with were reg ulars. part of an infantry regiment that had been included in Pershing's column in Mexico. However, the in crease in the size of the companies to war strength and other factors had brought in many new men, so that dbouI iu per cent or tne battalion were recruits. great number of them were Southerners and it would come out in various ways. One of them from d, feud section told ono of the officers that he'd been in a good many wars in his lifetime, but that this was the first public war he'd ever been in. Another a moonshiner was much pleased with the steel helmets and remarked that when he got out in the hills at home, he could lie on