Often when people speak English, they will throw in a French expression, sort of how you'd use a slang word, in order to sound sophisticated. Many people think this sounds pretentious and makes things hard to understand. Literature often has many of these. Some examples include joi de vivre, le petit dejeuner, je ne se quoi, and garage. "Oooh la ti dah, Mr Frenchy. Garage! haha Garage!" "Why? What do you call it?" "A car hole" -Simpsons

Do you think this may have something to do with the wide influence of French on English during the Dark and Middle Ages, preceded by the Norman Invasion in the 11th Century?

The influx of Norman French at the time introduced many new concepts and synonyms into English, especially as the Normans became the ruling class and English was only spoken by the lower classes, who didn't write and mostly didn't read literature.

Later, during the Rinascimento (Renaissance), French, along with Latin and Greek, became the language of currency.

Even in more Modern times, French was the lingua franca of the world (only relatively recently superceded by English) and thus had uplifted status, as English does in many nations now.

Oh, and by the way, to use the word 'sophisticated' (from the Old French word, sophisticacioun) is to be sophisticated.

"Pretentious, moi? Mai, non!"

But seriously French people do exactly the same thing with English expressions, often in much the same way. You will often hear little snippets of Franglais in conversations and especially when talking about music young french people often mix in complete bits of Enlgish.

Makes them sound stupid tho', "Yeah, thats dope" just doesn't have the right ring to it when done with a French accent

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