Time to open the mail bag for the readers challenge I posted a while back asking folks to give their ideas for French words to take out of English (prompted by the French language police's decision to replace e-mail with courriel).

The missus chimed in by suggesting we replace "resume" with "C.V." This is apparently the more standard term world-wide, and given that it's in use in American academia, it's at least got a foothold.

Dave Vacca wrote to give the old standby of replacing "garage" with "car hole." He also liked the idea of calling the art movement Fauvism by a more literal translation: Beastiality. Imagine, as Dave did, this intro to an art text: "The artists most closely
associated with Beastiality include Henri Matisse, Albert Marquet, Andre Derain and Maurice de Vlaminck."

I had three suggestions for re-naming the eclair, France's pastry contribution to atherosclerosis. Matt Bruce suggested "fancy Twinkie," which I like quite a bit, though perhaps the eclair is more like a fancy Chocodile. Scott Monty had both the generic "puff pastry" and the salute to French military prowess, "dessert Wellington."

Scott actually had several more ideas:

* Montpelier, Vermont would be called North Bumf*ck. If you've been through, you'd probably agree.
* Suisse Chalet would be called Howard Johnson's. Having stayed in both, that may be a slander to Mr. Johnson. And wouldn't the Suisse Chalet be Swiss?
* Crayon would now be a pee-wee pencil.
* And my favorite, apparently inspired by the Deck of Weasels, a beret would now be called a "sissy hat."

Scott also included a Wall Street Journal editoria which made an interesting point. The French seemed more concerned with the use of the word "mail" than the word "electronic," which in French is "electronique." According to the OED, the word "mail" dervies from a Middle French term for a courier's bag. "Electronic," meanwhile, came to use from the Greek via Latin. French is a Romance language, but you'd think they'd not want to put the kibosh on a putatively native word.