Loose Lips	Loose Lips Archive

George W. Bush's campaign to begin a war in Iraq has suffered some setbacks in recent weeks, most notably those arising from France's actions at the United Nations. Miss Poubelle has been appalled to see a corresponding increase in abuse and hatred of the French in the United States.

American media have recently reported that some conservative Americans have begun boycotting French products in response to its anti-war efforts. A restaurant in North Carolina has relabelled its French fries as freedom fries, and Republican legislator Steve Barrar has introduced a bill to ban the sale of French wine in Pennsylvania state liquor stores.

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Of course, these yahoos are unrepresentative of most Americans, who don't hold such extreme positions. Yet, the recent politically-motivated abuse of the French draws on a long tradition of anti-French sentiment. The origins of English resentment of the French probably go at least as far back as 1066, and the English and French have been at war repeatedly ever since. In particular, the French revolution, with its anticlerical and democratic impulses, was terrifying to the British establishment, and they responded with anti-French propaganda that is still with us today. Americans have, unfortunately, inherited many of the English prejudices against the French.

Over the centuries, the English language has acquired many terms that reflect hostility to the French. These reflect the English image of the French as promiscuous, irreligious, and weak-- the very terms with which rightwing Americans abuse the French today.

The earliest English propaganda seems to be that venereal diseases (especially syphilis) come from France. They have been referred to by a variety of unflattering French terms, such as French pox (1503), French marbles (1592), French disease (1598), French mole (1607), French measles (1617), and French aches (1664).

Later English phrases impute such such things as pornography, contraception, and deviant sexuality to the French. As early as 1749, an allusion to a French novel conveyed a certain raciness, for French novels were able to discuss sexuality in more detail than English novels of the same time. And in more recent times, French postcards were sexually explicit photographs.

By 1856, the French were also being blamed for contraception, when French letters became the common English word for what are now called condoms.

Two kinds of oral sexuality are also blamed on the French. French kissing involves putting the tongue in another's mouth, and the earliest citation in the OED is from 1923. There's no reason to think that this kind of tongue-kissing is in any way specific to the French or peculiarly characteristic of the French. But perhaps the term comes from the perceived 'naughtiness' of the act, and the stereotype of the French as sexually permissive.

French is also a euphemism for oral sex, though the first citation in the OED is from a surprisingly late 1958. Miss Poubelle believes that this use of French is fast going the way of the dinosaur. As recently as twenty years ago, however, many personals columns would not carry explicit sexual language, and this led to an elaborate code, where French referred to oral sex and Greek to anal sex. (It seems that the decline of censorship and the rise of internet hook-ups have pretty much brought an end to this type of coded language.)

The language of the warmongers consciously plays on this history of hostility to the French to bolster their case for war on Iraq-- the wickedness of the French means that their anti-war efforts must be rejected as reflecting a deep conspiracy against the right and the true.

But it is important to remember that the linguistic impresses of hostility to the French are just old political propaganda. We mustn't allow ourselves to be seduced by the old stereotypes of Anglo-American monogamy, piety, and strength as opposed to French promiscuity, irreligion, and weakness. Too many lives are at stake for that kind of simplistic thinking.