Originally posted by Sydney:
Thanks, Michael! I didn't know this American colloquialism.
But it seems to me that, in the US, people have very strange ideas about French language!
Americans also think the French language is the language of love and romance, and that nothing is sexier than a French accent (Why Claude had such an easy time with Lois). We think French cooking the best food in the world, so much so, we add the word "French" in front of foods that may, or may not, have originated in France just to make it sound more exotic and fancy (French Fries, French Dressing, French Toast). We're a weird mish-mash of ideas, aren't we?
And when we don't understand something we say "It's all Greek to me." Does that mean that we think that the Greeks are smarter than us, because *they* can speak (and understand) Greek?
