Posted on 01/12/2005 7:47:00 AM PST by kahoutek
Why “Frogs”? Our pet name for the French.
Is it really so bad to refer to an entire nation of people as frogs?
Last summer, when I was giving a speech on Franco-American relations — shortly before the publication of Our Oldest Enemy: A History of America's Disastrous Relationship with France — I made a frog joke. It involved a stuffed pig, a barbeque, and, well, you sort of had to be there. But it was definitely a quip about the French. The audience snickered, though a few people exchanged nervous glances. They clearly wondered if it was appropriate to laugh when somebody referred to the French as frogs.
Lighten up, I thought. Think about it: If we aimed to insult, truly and deeply and venomously, then we could skip right over cute green amphibians and compare the French to the frogs' warty cousins, the toads. Or, in honor of Pepe LePew (as well as international perceptions about French bathing habits), we could call them skunks. Or we might allude to something else entirely and call them chickens. Or maybe even cheese-eating surrender monkeys.
Given this range of name-calling options, what's so bad about frogs as a national nickname? The good people at Texas Christian University don't consider frogs a derisive word. Their sports teams are called the Horned Frogs. Go Frogs!
As it happens, frogs have thin skins — and so do the French. Some in France have taken to labeling American criticisms of their government's policies as racist, even when they're offered in non-amphibian terms. "When you insult the French people, simply because they are French, then it's kind of a racist campaign," said Ambassador Jean-David Levitte. He was referring to the relatively tame late-night jokes of Jay Leno and David Letterman. My co-author Mark Molesky and I don't actually describe the French as frogs anywhere on the pages of Our Oldest Enemy. Yet in his New York Times review of our book, French philosopher Bernard Henri-Levy saw fit to call us racists anyway. This absurd charge is of course a scurrilous tactic whose goal is to end a debate about Franco-American relations that's worth having even if doesn't serve the interests of Jacques Chirac and his neo-Gaullist henchmen.
No matter what we conclude about the propriety of calling the French frogs, there's still the academic question: How did the French earn this moniker? Nobody knows for sure, though there are several theories. Here are five leading ones:
1. The French fondness for eating frogs. File this one under "you are what you eat." The only problem is that although frogs are sometimes eaten in France, the French are hardly unique in this respect. The frog, says the Oxford Companion to Food, "is perceived by the English as a staple of the French diet, [and] is indeed eaten in France but also in many other parts of the world, whether previously under French influence...or not." The book goes on to describe frogs as having "a delicate flavor...customarily said to resemble chicken meat." (I agree. The real problem is that there isn't much meat on the leg-bones.) For what it's worth, France outlawed commercial frog farming in 1977.
2. Frogs were a symbol of French royalty. This one apparently has its roots among early Frankish kings, such as Clovis I. But that seems too archaic for a slang word that's alive and well today. Clovis I lived about 15 centuries ago.
3. The fleur-de-lys is a stylized frog. This would be an interesting idea if one of France's best-known symbols weren't actually based on an iris flower with three petals. One legend traces its origins to our friend Clovis I. Its roots definitely go back at least as far as Louis VI, who used the fleur-de-lys as a seal and on his coins some 900 years ago. Punsters sometimes talk of the fleur-de-Louis. Maybe someone should invent a frog-de-lys.
4. A non-Parisian putdown for Paris. Marshes apparently once ringed the French metropolis, and so the sneering aristocrats of Versailles applied the word to city slickers.
5. A Paris putdown for non-Parisians. Sophisticated urbanites sneered at the rural taste for amphibians (see #1, above), and attached the term to everybody but themselves, which is to say the bulk of the national population.
I have heard that it was from their distinctive green WWI uniforms???
That stinkin' frog is givin' us the FINGER!
Unnnggghhh. That is one evil looking frog.
The Toe, actually.
Ahhhhh, Laetitia.
Ummm, does it strike anyone else that hiring a French philosopher (translation: professional left-winger) to review a book critical of the French is hardly conducive to a fair evaluation?
Polly voo Fronds say!
Accept no substitutes. :o)
The Roman name for France was Gaul stemming from the word "gallus" which was this. And it really is France's national emblem.
I like to call them quiche-eaters.
The French can dish it out, but they can't take it.
In retaliation the French call the English "Rost-bifs" and they consider it to be a term of derision.
France is a country where the money falls apart in your hands and you cannot tear the toilet paper.
4. An ornamental looped braid or cord with button or knot for fastening the front of a jacket.
Or maybe..7. a hoarseness in the throat.
or..."Something to be coughed up and spat out.."
As a Georgia friend of mine once observed: "Any race of people who run around going 'oui-oui' all the time can't be too great".
Bump for later; I have a book at home that gives the reason for the French being called Frogs. IIRC, it dates back to the French Revolution. I'll check later and post it.
Sure, and that's why the Brits are called "limeys" and the Germans, "krauts".
We need a picture of a frog with a pancake on it's head.
My understanding is that the toads brought a lawsuit and got an injunction preventing us from using the term "toads." Hence, we now use the term "frogs."
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