Re: Astronauts Gone Wild available on DVD

From: Mary Shafer (miliff_at_qnet.com)
Date: 06/24/04 

Date: Wed, 23 Jun 2004 17:39:16 -0700

On Wed, 23 Jun 2004 17:58:05 -0500, OM
<om@our_blessed_lady_mary_of_the_holy_NASA_research_facility.org>
wrote:

> ...Actually, it's one I picked up from an old _Boy Commandos_ story by
> Jack Kirby & Joe Simon from ~1942. Dan "Brooklyn" Turpin captures
> someone stalking the BCs, and when he begins to speak French he
> hollars to his commander and semi-parent Captain Rip Carter, "Hey! We
> caught a Frog!" The term, as I've always been told, refers to the fact
> that most native French speakers sound as if they've got a frog stuck
> in their throat when they talk.

No, it's because Paris was founded in a marsh. The other French
people called the Parisians "les Grounilles", "the frogs", because
they lived in the marsh. The Parisians, like Americans with "Yankee
Doodle", adopted this derogatory nickname for their own.

Then, by extension, the English picked up the Parisian nickname and
applied it to the populace of the entire country. This usage spread
to the colonies, of course. It didn't hurt that characterizing the
French as Frogs was a pure gift to political cartoonists.

Mary 

-- 
Mary Shafer   Retired aerospace research engineer
miliff@qnet.com

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