Last year about this time, The Mister took a French test. Before he left, we went over some of his verbs.
I was reminding him one always does the cooking.
“Je fais la cuisine!” I said.
Then he caught me with a new verb I didn’t know — the netty toyay.
Oui, vraiment, il a dit “the netty toyay.”
Nettoyer.
Je nettoierai sa bouche. Tsk!
Now I can’t clean anything without thinking about how I’m doing the netty toyay!
For those of you who do not speak French, it isn’t going to be funny when I explain it, but I will. The verb is nettoyer, pronounced neh-twah-yay, and means ‘to clean.’ The Mister saying netty toyay was like nails on a chalkboard. I said I’d clean his mouth out.
For more French language humor see posts here and here.
Happy Friday Everyone!
joeyfullystated 
I’m going to equate this to my English version of nails on a chalkboard- people who say it’s a “mute point” in exchange for a “moot point”. I’m cringing just typing it…
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That is definitely cringe worthy. Right up there with being taken for ‘granite.’ Ugh, ugh, ugh!
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Thanks for the lesson. I think. Moot vs mute reminds be of a pal from college who made the mistake of telling me once how much he detested that verbal mis-cue. So naturally I try to work that into our conversation whenever possible.
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¡Ay, caramba!
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I have to say, I am French Canadian, I speak, read, write French everyday and when I first saw the WORD “the netty toyay,” I had no clue what you were talking about 🙂 You really made me smile though.
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Hehe, now I’ll start thinking ‘netty toyay’ whenever I use the French verb “nettoyer.” Of course, my French speaking is now almost nonexistent so it probably won’t happen much. 🙂
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That sounds like what the southerners do to the English language.
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Was he goofing or just having trouble with the pronunciation?
You can blame a man for a bad joke, but you can’t blame him for trying 😉
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It’s always good to end lunch with a laugh. Even if I have to imagine the sounds. I have to imagine the dialog. Nails on the chalkboard? I got that…
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Um, he didn’t take his French seriously, so I’m sure, like many things, he did it to get a rise out me 😉
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Every time I speak french to a french person they act like I’ve just pulled their fingernails out!
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Funny, isn’t it? We admire the French accents in their English, but they detest our American accents in their French. Of course, some are happy to help, but many would rather speak English, and that’s fine by me 😉
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I love the sound of the French language. Enjoyed it in high school and always vowed to pursue it further but life got in the way. I’d love to live in Paris for a few years (or any French speaking place really) just to immerse myself in the language.
This post made me smile. Happy weekend!
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🙂 I’m glad to make you smile!
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This was amusing and made me chuckle, Joey. Thanks and hope you and the Mister have lots of fun and romance for Valentine’s Day or at least something out of the ordinary. . . Smiles, Robin
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Cute post (though I don’t speak French!) I tried to comment on a couple of your other posts today (the Mommy blog one and the Handwriting one) but comments were closed. However, I enjoyed both posts!! I have horrible handwriting. Worse than a doctor. Because of that, I like to think it belongs in the “useless” camp of skills, but then I think how sad it is that all of the beautiful handwritten documents of the past will never exist in the future (or mostly won’t exist) and then I realize it’s a lost art.
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Yes, sorry, but I found people were saying the strangest, most unrelated things on my oldest posts. I’m glad you read them and had thoughts on them though, I promise 🙂
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Ah I see 🙂 wasn’t sure if you normally accepted just a certain number of comments!
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I’m always amazed at how easily speaking French comes back to me whenever I visit France. It’s like all the stuff I learned at school is hiding in my head, just waiting for a chance to get out and show off.
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