Personal things to me are my story. Personal things to you and others are yours and their story of which I will NOT repeat what is shared with me. As for our human collective story upon the Earth, how do I interact with that? I get fed stories as do you. These horrid, often terrifying World Stories have to be process carefully and intelligently (oh wow, see how that word is spelt: In Tell I Gently). The automatic reaction to news can be fear or anger or all manner of negativity. For instance, how do I (or you) process reading that French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said on Friday (in an emergency EU foreign ministers meeting in Brussels to try to salvage the nuclear deal), that Iran could have nuclear weapons in one to two years if the country carries on violating the 2015 nuclear accord? Shit! but hold on, I’ve no control over others or what they say or do so far away in Iran and it’s surely their story! right? So what can I do with the thoughts, feelings and emotions that come with reading all that? I wish to process it carefully and intelligently (In Tell I Gently). Firstly reiterating “I’ve no control in the matter” and ending quickly with “it’s therefore none of my business“.
Damn it though, but I’m going on in this blog and to tangent away from what was said by the French Foreign Minister, I’ll discuss my learning of the French language. So, moving swiftly on: In France, did you know, that apparently the language contains plenty of “ligature digraphs” and yes I had to look that up e.g. Æ and Œ. As you can see, it’s where letters are stuck together, sort of joined as if getting really intimate. These letter couples are very rarely used now in Britain. Is it a bit like how P and H join together in the UK to form PH which is then pronounced as “f” but that it isn’t written merged as one letter? Well anyways, these ligature digraphs Æ and Œ make two become one (click on the link for a giggle). Hold on though, I’m not sure these Æ and Œ characters actually do change into a new one. Again with the anyways, as this is what I’m working on instead of minding the business of others and getting in a worried state.
So, as you can see, this learning French also involves learning new letters or joining them. I’m not going to give you the giggles of how crap I am at the pronunciation and my attempts at a French accent (that’s my businessand I advise you wisely and kindly to MIND your own). Oh, but I have supplied an image I made for my own use for you too. I pointing out, that there are five letter accents in the French language: four are used on vowels: aigu = É, grave = È, tréma = Ë and circonflexe = Ê and one is used on a consonant: cédille = Ç. Not only do these accents dictate the pronunciation of a word, but I have to be aware that they can also totally change the words meaning! So cop a load of: Oh la la, la, la la la la la!!!
Over Soil 