When is it necessary to bray?

[mint]

Rant coming up so please do NOT read if you don't want to know or are going to get crabby with me....

Shopping at Lidl this afternoon with OH and couldn't avoid hearing the sounds of tremendously loud English voices with that distinct braying that only a certain type of English person can and likes to do![+o(]

It's a pretty big Lidl but you could hear the braying in all the aisles.

I regret I have to specify "English" because I do not hear Welsh people or Scottish people or Northern Irish people or indeed any other Brit of any other racial or linguistic origin who speak quite like it.

Loud, persistent, whine-y, usually talking about nothing of any interest or importance to anyone else....

I thought people stopped behaving like that in public places round about the 1950s but clearly there are some descendants that have not quite realised that, far from sounding superior, they sound like they should put a sock in it.

Rant over..... 

[Chrissie]

Oh yes - I think they are trained in carriages on the UK railway system - gives them the right amount of volume and really irritates the **** out of everyone.  I hastily fold my English shopping list over so no-one thinks I am in any way connected to these people .  Or (worse) that they should spot me and start to involve me in conversation.  At times like this I find it handy to be able to say "I only speak Danish" but once I was caught out by someone (a ghastly Swede) who DID!   Uurrgghh.  [+o(]

Chrissie(81)

[NormanH]

but I wasn't in Lidl this afternoon...[8-)]

[Patf]

[quote user="Chrissie"]

.  I hastily fold my English shopping list over so no-one thinks I am in any way connected to these people .  Or (worse) that they should spot me and start to involve me in conversation. 

[/quote]

I know the feeling Chrissie . I've done the same thing more than once in Carrefour.

[dave21478]

Being Scottish, and conversing with the few other Scots I know here, we seem to talk in low pitched tones at a quiet volume. It is just the way we talk....However, an English voice can usually be heard from 3 aisles away in a busy shop. Higher pitched, louder and in many cases with a blatant disregard of whether those around them want to hear their views.

Add to that mix a couple of kids, usually called Tarquin and Jocasta, and the entire store will soon learn their thoughts on the lack of HP sauce.

[NickP]

The Scottish voice does tend to be quieter, as it is normally muffled by a can of heavy and it's difficult to drink, vomit and talk loudly at the same time. [:P] 

[bettyboop]

shopping in Carrefour last year, all you could hear throughout tthe store was an English woman yelling at her two kids, she then asked tthe cashier for cashback lol

[idun]

I rarely heard english voices anywhere unless I was in a ski station or on holiday. I could always hear them and we always spoke french when we did.

[idun]

Your lol betty boop, well..................... Carrefour used to do cash back long before they did in the UK. And then they stopped.  So it is an 'olde' thing in France.

[Quillan]

I think the Spanish are the worse. They can't seem to hold a conversation without shouting and that's when they are just 1M apart. Don't know why they bother with a phone really. [:)] Perhaps it's the language rather than the country as Spanish speaking South Americans seem to shout as well.

[Tancrède]

I think it is possible to overlook the positive aspects of braying.  For example, I felt very privileged to share (as unintending audience) this excellent conversation the other day at a café in Beaune :

American into mobile phone :       Hi  -  we're in France…

His wife (very much present in the flesh) :     No !   We're not in France, this is Paris !

American into mobile phone :       Oh sorry about that…  yes, I thought we were in France but we're actually in Paris  -  it's very much smaller than I had imagined.

If they hadn't been braying, I would have missed this important and refreshing glimpse of International Life.

    

[bettyboop]

[quote user="idun"]Your lol betty boop, well..................... Carrefour used to do cash back long before they did in the UK. And then they stopped.  So it is an 'olde' thing in France.[/quote]

apologies...never seen it before in France...

[Cendrillon]

[quote user="sweet 17"]

Rant coming up so please do NOT read if you don't want to know or are going to get crabby with me....

Shopping at Lidl this afternoon with OH and couldn't avoid hearing the sounds of tremendously loud English voices with that distinct braying that only a certain type of English person can and likes to do![+o(]

It's a pretty big Lidl but you could hear the braying in all the aisles.

I regret I have to specify "English" because I do not hear Welsh people or Scottish people or Northern Irish people or indeed any other Brit of any other racial or linguistic origin who speak quite like it.

Loud, persistent, whine-y, usually talking about nothing of any interest or importance to anyone else....

I thought people stopped behaving like that in public places round about the 1950s but clearly there are some descendants that have not quite realised that, far from sounding superior, they sound like they should put a sock in it.

[:)]but lots of people move over to live in France because they think it is like England was 50 years ago LOL!

Rant over..... 

[/quote]

Really Sweets you'll have to stop frequenting such common shops, get your orders sent to the chateau instead my dear.[:)]

[Gardengirl]

Yes, these loud English people get everywhere - and it's awful! They seem to be either of the braying or shrill type.

Yesterday

I had my first short outing since arriving back in France last weekend.

Very unpleasant weather, but bronchitis had hit, and as it was getting

worse a visit to the doctor was needed, followed by a visit to the

pharmacy. I needed a sit down by then, so we popped in to a warm café

for a sit-down and a drink. We'd just placed our order when a piercing

English voice arrived - and we were a long way from the door - it's a

boulangerie/patisserie with a long and narrow café at the far end, with

another door to the street. It was a dreadful noise! Two women had

entered, the English one with THE voice and a quiet one. They joined a

chap who'd been sitting in the lovely warmth for ages, and who had sent

the waitress away without ordering, we assumed because he was being

joined for late coffee/cakes or early lunch by other/s. After a big fuss

about who should take which seat they sat down with him, Mrs Shrill

English giving great detail of the wonderful market, shopping they (she)

had done etc. After our initial cringe, we tried to ignore it, but they

were only 2 tables and the aisle away, so it was difficult. We carried

on with our drinks and newspapers, when suddenly everything went quiet.

On looking up, we found they had disappeared - they had obviously

decided that there was nothing on the menu they fancied, so they had

left - silently! So Mrs Shrill English did know when to shut up after

all. Life continued quietly at all the other tables, which were mostly

taken - and quiet. For all I know, there might have been other

nationalities around us - but all I could hear apart from quiet French

at the tables either side of us was a quiet murmur. Peace!

We get

a lot of tourists where we live in France, and it's true that there are

many loud English voices. We can tell without a calendar when the

Easter holidays in England have started - second-home owners flock down

and loudly inform their friends they've met up with and everyone around

what they've been up to, how hard they've been working, how their

wonderful children are getting on etc. (Nothing against second-home

owners - some of us are mostly quiet! [:D]

But we also get a

whole range of Australian visitors here who often have very loud braying

voices voices which carry far and wide, along with lots of Americans

who can be equally shrill and we do our best to avoid them. Also very

loud are tourists from Spain and Italy, and a few weeks ago we had a

particularly loud Chinese tour group around town - deafening - but that

was a group, which is a different kettle of fish!

[Thibault]

Have you noticed that when you are abroad and all around you are speaking in a foreign language, your ears immediately pick up the sounds of your own native language, no matter how far away (within reason, of course [:)]) the speaker is?  It's much the same as being at a crowded party when over the hum your hear your own name.

Perhaps our brains are listening out for these things.

[Mac]

"Thibault"]Have you noticed that when you are abroad and all around you are speaking in a foreign language, your ears immediately pick up the sounds of your own native language, no matter how far away (within reason, of course ) the speaker is?  It's much the same as being at a crowded party when over the hum your hear your own name.

Perhaps our brains are listening out for these things.'

I agree-you do pick out English even when it's being spoken quietly. And don't forget-you may think you are speaking quietly but someone else on the other side of the shop is probably thinking-' Listen to those English people braying'!!

[Val_2]

My son works in Lidl weekends and every holiday from uni. He never lets onto british clients that he is english as he feels they should struggle with french to help themselves and not expect the french to all speak english for their sakes.

He had a right old hooray henry come in, you know the sort - all yahs and super,wanting to know where the fresh milk was.Lidl do not sell fresh milk so my son told him where the UHT stocks were and this bloke who was approx early 30's had a mental,swearing in english at my son and insulting the shop. My son then said in english " If you have finished showing yourself up,swearing and ranting, you can now **ck off and don't come back because we don't want your sort here. His boss clapped and so did most of all the other shoppers and the hooray henry slunk off. He wasn't a local because he had a UK reg car outside so obviously on a holiday.

These are the sort of brits who let the home side down in France and they are to be found just about everywhere.

[Hoddy]

I hate these braying English people wherever they are. They often seem to be in the same restaurant as me and I can't pretend to be French around here.

Is it my imagination or do they all have a grandson called Max ?

Very well done to your son Val2, I wish I'd been there.

Hoddy

[Clair]

If, whilst in Central France anywhere between Brive and Aurillac you ever happen to hear a French woman swearing loudly in fluent English, please bear in mind that Mr Clair is as deaf as a post and hasn't had his hearing aids fitted yet... [Www]

[idun]

And just a footnote, Bettyboop, french supermarkets used to do cash back years ago. The debit card system was well advanced on the UK one for many many years, using pin numbers etc a long time before the UK did and in the UK people used to have to sign all the time. AND then the cash back stopped, I don't know why, but whilst it last it was very convenient.

[suein56]

[quote user="Thibault"]Have you noticed that when you are abroad and all around you are speaking in a foreign language, your ears immediately pick up the sounds of your own native language ... [/quote]

French friends, on returning from their first visit to the UK, explained how mortified they were to have heard their fellow compatriots 'shouting' in French in a London Pub. They said they were so embarrassed by the loud behaviour they leant low over the pub table and pretended they had not understood - though it was difficult to hide their faces which were red with shame.

Sue

[Ivor Nidea]

If you go into Lidl what do you expect? Stretch pants and high heel shoes, and that's not on the shelves!

[Quillan]

Sorry to disagree with the theory of Brits in France as it is not just the Brits but as somebody says it might just be that we are Brits and therefor pick up on it more.

I have witnessed French and other nationalities doing the same thing in France, I have also witnessed Brits doing it in the UK as well. I don't think it is necessarily a nationality thing more of a person thing and that some are just like it wherever you go. As many say often "there's always one"!

Some people are worse than others and I have witnessed and intervened in something similar to Vals son but in a DIY shop. Swearing because they didn't understand English and he wanted draft excluder for his windows. I guess the fact he was dressed in 'plus fours' (I joke not) that gave him away. I told him to buy a good dictionary and look up what he wanted before going out, write it down if necessary as that was what I would do. I also told him it was lucky the lady he was swearing at and her husband didn't speak nor understand English else he may have spent most of his holiday in hospital.

I have also witnessed Dutch doing the same thing. The other thing I always find funny is that people tend to should more in an attempt to get somebody to understand them even though they speak a different language. I have always found it better to speak calm, slowly, keep your sentences short and pause between each one but that's with nationalities other than French and English.

I have seen the same sort of thing in a UK supermarket but the person was eastern European. I have been out to dinner in the UK and had Brits doing the same thing. Once I was in a posh restaurant in the UK and there were two very well known (like seen regularly on TV) snooker players with their wives. They were really very loud, laughing etc and to be honest pig ignorant, they spoilt my and other peoples evening but because they were 'famous' the staff did nothing even when we and others complained.

[woolybanana]

Surely, braying is the equivalent to dogs peeing everywhere they go to mark their passing.

[Quillan]

[quote user="Ivor Nidea"]If you go into Lidl what do you expect? Stretch pants and high heel shoes, and that's not on the shelves![/quote]

Now don't you start having a poke at Lidl mate. [;-)] Those that are too snooty are missing out on some good stuff I can tell you. We have been using their cleaning products, with the exception their "Shower Power" for years in our CdH and they are brilliant. For ages they were the only people who sold lens cleaners for glass's (Dia do them now) and we have had a few 'good do's' on other things as well. Their Perlenbacher beer is probably the best you can find in France (or anywhere come to that -  gets rave press reviews) and it's cheap to. You could always go in disguise if you like and then pluck up courage and visit Aldi who also have very good deals. They also have a wholesale bit for people like me who have CdH's and its cheaper than Metro. [;-)]