I was reading back through the discussion on the use of personal photos and I saw a thread where you said there is a story behind your name.  Weeeeellllllllll I was wondering if you are going to share it?? I am assuming it is something different from the obvious - you being french - and the rest of the world calling you frogs (well in NZ at least we do - although more choice words are used following world cup defeats! But lets not go there as it is a tad depressing!)

 

So Frenchie - Story STORY STORY STORY STORY STORY STORY STORY STORY P - LEEEEEEEASE

 

 

If you do decide to tell us the story - it will make me soooooooo happy that I might even do a happy dance

 

(by the way - the use of the photos was a fantastic conversation topic with my teenagers - I explained what had happened on this website - I couldn�t have stopped them from talking in English if I had tried!!!!) 

 

1) I found this picture of the frog with the beret and found it very funny!

2) Then I thought, the English call the French "Frogs / Froggies" (quite offensively actually!).

3) And then I thought (again!), the French are known for eating "strange" food such as snails, frogs� legs, rabbit (I know that in some countries rabbits are not eaten)...

4) Finally, my sister collects anything about frogs. I felt closer to her using this picture.

 

See! Nothing big! The 4 reasons combined together simply made sense to me!

 

Now my turn, 2 questions:

1) What words are used to call the French after a world cup defeat? (I am so curious!!)

2) What did your teenagers think? How did they react?

 

Frenchfrog

 

1)  The thing is that Rugby is like the lifeblood of Kiwi�s.  We eat, sleep, drink and live for Rugby.  The whole national pride thing is mixed up with how well the All Blacks do.  I know stupid huh - but that is how it is. 

 

2)  The other thing to remember is that New Zealand has only ever had one act of war or terrorism occur towards our country from another country in our country  - and that was commisioned by the french government against a greenpeace boat (which was blown up) and the french people welcomed the perpetrators home like they were heros.

 

3)  On top of that the french also did some nuclear testing in the pacific - quite close to us - and we are a nuclear free country.

 

As you can imagine the french as a country were not exactly popular.

 

then the french beat us in the semi-finals of the world cup (quite rightly as our team really sucked at playing that day for various reasons we won�t get into).

 

Then at the last world cup the french beat us in the quarter finals (many people were rather upset by the referee that day - who many kiwis believe is now living the high life in some french owned carribean island)  So there was a lot of depression, name calling, and general bad sportsmanship in general.  As you can imagine there are many words in the english language that start with an F and therefore go very wll with the word french or frog.

 

There is great debate in New Zealand over which is the greater crime - government instigated terrorist act in our harbour, nuclear testing in our backyard, or beating us in the world cup (twice!!!!).

 

But at the end of the day, if a kiwi meets a frog - we generally are nice to them and have fun together.  Kiwi�s aren�t very good at not liking people!!!