Monday, September 15, 2008

English Spoken Here

You can spend a lot of time in Paris without hearing much English spoken but I defy you to go more than two or three blocks without seeing a T shirt with an English language message. Some of these are American brands that have gone global like Gap, Hollister, and Abercrombie & Fitch. Others are clever fakes like those that say NYPD, FBI, or the Franklin & Marshall hoodies and tees. (It took me awhile to figure out that there was no way that a small Pennsylvania liberal arts college could have so many exchange students.) And others I've seen simply defy logic. There was the navy blue shirt worn by the 50ish French dude that said "Department of Idaho." Another fellow, an Italian tourist I think, whom I saw on the metro, was wearing a shirt with a yellow school bus on it and the words, "US Schoolbus Sport and Activities Junior Department." The one that really took the cake was the young black man whose shirt read:

Squad Leaders Search for Hard Things
Support System
Search for United East Coast Rockaz
Phonetic



Got that?

2 comments:

Starman said...

I imagine a lot of French people are visiting the US now that the exchange rate is so favorable to them.

Unknown said...

I don't understand one shirt I saw that read "original authentic cotton clothing" (so what?), but the one that takes the cake was worn by a teenage waiter who knew little English which had "Teacherf---er" in big letters across the back. Classy.

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