here's a little incident that happened to me today.

Waiting at the pharmacy, we witnessed the gentleman just in front of us,
apparently not a French speaker, hold out his iPhone to the pharmacist
with a poorly pronounced "s'il vous plait?" She smiled, shrugged and told
him "Sorry, we don't have that here, try the Nicolas (wine store) next
door." When I asked her what it was all about, she responded "He asked
for a Cremant d'Alsace, but I don't know anything about wine!"

Emery Davis wrote:
> here's a little incident that happened to me today.
>
> Waiting at the pharmacy, we witnessed the gentleman just in front of us,
> apparently not a French speaker, hold out his iPhone to the pharmacist
> with a poorly pronounced "s'il vous plait?" She smiled, shrugged and told
> him "Sorry, we don't have that here, try the Nicolas (wine store) next
> door." When I asked her what it was all about, she responded "He asked
> for a Cremant d'Alsace, but I don't know anything about wine!"

Too funny, Emery. Was this out by your farm, or at your pied-Ã*-terre?
Equally incomprehensible either way...

Mark Lipton

On 12/09/2013 21:50, Emery Davis wrote:
> here's a little incident that happened to me today.
>
> Waiting at the pharmacy, we witnessed the gentleman just in front of us,
> apparently not a French speaker, hold out his iPhone to the pharmacist
> with a poorly pronounced "s'il vous plait?" She smiled, shrugged and told
> him "Sorry, we don't have that here, try the Nicolas (wine store) next
> door." When I asked her what it was all about, she responded "He asked
> for a Cremant d'Alsace, but I don't know anything about wine!"

One interesting thing about that anecdote is that, despite a professed
ignorance of wine, the woman behind the counter did know what a Crémant
d'Alsace was. Try it in the UK, and the assistant would scurry to the
qualified pharmacist, who would be puzzled and probably assume it was
some weird remedy that they don't stock.

--
www.winenous.co.uk

On Fri, 13 Sep 2013 01:10:05 -0400, Mark Lipton wrote:

> Emery Davis wrote:
>> here's a little incident that happened to me today.
>>
> Too funny, Emery. Was this out by your farm, or at your pied-Ã*-terre?
> Equally incomprehensible either way...
>

Heh, in Paris, in the heart of Passy! I don't think I'll ever figure this
one out...

Wait, one time when I had a stomach bug someone talked me into the "cure
d'Alsacienne" which consists (apparently) of drinking an entire bottle of
Riesling solo early in the morning. In my defense, he provided the
bottle... Unfortunately it didn't work. But maybe this guy was after a
variation of "la cure".