The illustration above is the cover of a kid's book in the Occitan language. It is a minority language in France -- rather like Gaelic in Scotland.
But the French police don't speak Occitan so didn't understand what was on the cover. Even though it was obviously a kid's book, they were very suspicious of the word "papagai" (meaning parrot; cf. "papagayo" in Spanish).
What they didn't like is the "gai" on the end of the word. "Gai" means "gay" in French but mainly in the sense of "jolly". But English usages are often adopted in France so the cops apparently suspected that something bad was being said about homosexuals.
We read:
"Nonetheless, solely because of the cover of that book, Michel Grosclaude was investigated and questioned by the French police, suspected of sexual discrimination and perhaps even darker offenses".
So you even have to watch your word-endings in France.
7 comments:
Man! This is as bad as the woman who was harassed in Australia over the license plate 'Kiki' her nickname in English, but apparently a naughty word in Tagalog, a Filipino language.
Why would anyone care what the french do, say, or think. Obviously, they feel quite comfortable surrendering to political correctness, especially since surrendering has become a tradition for them.
What makes this story even more distressing is that "papagai" is not confined to a small minority language in France.
I know this word to be the word for a parrot in Afrikaans and that means that it has to be the word for a parrot in both Dutch and Flemish.
I'm in the process of checking the German word. Anyone here know the answer?
Considering that Europeans usually speak several languages, there is every reason to expect that the police KNEW that "papagai" means parrot.
This is what happends when you start banning words. It all started with the word nigger. Once they start you can't stop because everyone has a word they don't like. Except for white people of course. Stormewaters
White. Now that's a bad word!
It's Papagei in German too
Perroquet in French
Congrats, Jonathan, the Google filters let your comment through this time
The big hit movie RIO features two parrots a Boy Parrot and Girl Parrot pretty streight
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