Pocket French Dictionary. By Ferdinand E. A. Gaso. (Bell and
Daldy.) Paris: a Handbook, or French at Sight. (R. Washbourne.)— The visitor to Paris during the Exhibition will do well to put the first of these two books in his pocket. We can hardly counsel him to make use of the second, unless he wishes to be laughed at. Apparently French at sight consists in saying, " Noo sums arrevay ah Parse," moaning. " We have arrived at Paris." Some one puts the question (and a very natural one under the circumstances), " Where ?" and the French for where is rendered "who." The answer is "ah lah dwanne," and the demand of " vo clay" immediately follows. The eastern-house officer asks if the traveller has anything liable to duty, but the question, " avay voo kelk shoze ah day-olaray7" calls up to the English mind the name of a cele- brated contractor. At breakfast we are told to ask for mutton under the name of " dew moo tong," which philologists of the bow-wow school would take to mean milk and sugar, from the moo-cow drinking the early dew, and the implement used for extracting lumps from the sugar basin. Potatoes are "day pam de tare," pocket-handkerchiefs "moo ehwoird poshe," and the Exhibition calls itself "lex po zee sea ong." This may be French at sight, but it is clearly not French at hearing.
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