when did "French"

[BillStein]

become a euphemism for *#$%#***%, as in

"Pardon my French, but I hate #&%*@$% commercials"?

[treestar]

1. Don't know

Maybe it goes back to when French was the most common foreign language people got in high school. And a sort of slap at the French for thinking their language is so classy.

[zbdent]

2. Probably during or shortly after WWII ...

I've heard some rumblings that part of it was due to:

1. The French being "smelly"/"not using deodorant"/"too much perfume" (hmm ... in the U.S. there was the "take your Saturday night bath, whether you need it or not, so who's smelly?). Part of that being that, during the war, soap was probably hard to get ...

2. The French being "rude" ... I've heard that the French style of education is based on being #1 ... so, if you're #1, and you know it, you might appear "rude" ...

3. The occupation of France by the Germans ... "the surrender", forgetting that there was a Resistance ...

4. The downright egotism and arrogance of Americans.

[BillStein]

3. I was curious

I can remember using it when I was a kid, back in the early 1960's. I don't think the French were as vilified as they are today, although my memory could be faulty.

I'm always blown away by American's hatred of France. There would be noo USA if it weren't for the French!

[Bruce Wayne]

5. It's a post-DeGaulle thing, I think.

Movies in the 1930s mostly protrayed the frogs as suave & manly and generally admirable. French characters seem to get more sympathetic treatment from filmmakers than English characters (except when said English characters are protagonists, of course). It may be that, due to the evolution of the "special relationship" between the US and Britain during WW2, a lot of American opinion-shapers began to mimic the Britons' friendly antipathy toward the Frenchmen's more hautish national traits.

The coup de grace may have come with the rise to international prominence of Charles DeGaulle, a statesman without a country who did so much to defeat fascism on the basis of his attitude alone. During the war, he was notoriously difficult to work with, but this pure cussedness of character also was his principal virtue in rallying the Free French. Once the war was over, his choice to remove France from formal membership in NATO and posing like France was somehow a third force in the rivalry between the Russian and Anglo-American spheres, put the hard-to-manage characteristic of France out front and on display. Unlike modern presidents, DeGaulle didn't just lead France, he was France.

France passing the ball on Vietnam to the US probably didn't help fight the stereotype. They weren't just over cultured, it seemed, but also proudly inept.

This was the germ of the stereotype, I think. It should be noted that, as the French caricature of all bark and no bite was evolving, there was a parallel expansion in American culture of our anti-intellectual tradition. The more they seemed like poodles, the more we behaved like curs. So there is probably more than a little bit of a Doppler Effect in our 'surrender monkey' perceptions.

[jobycom]

4. "Whether she's naked under that toga. She *is* French. You know that?"

From Ghostbusters, about the Statue of Liberty.

The French for over a century have been seen as risque and sexually open, and in American and English puritanical minds, that was also seen as vulgur. "Pardon my French" meant "pardon my vulgarity."

There's also long been a jealousy over the French in America. They are seen as relaxed and confident and permissive, doing the stuff we wish we could do. Rich foods, licentious attitudes, and a grand tradition of indulgent artists all contrast with the pioneer, puritanical history of America. They are classical, we are frontier. So we have that love/hate thing with them. We hate them, and we wish we were them. We want our menage a trois, but afterwards we feel guilty, so we blame those vulgar French for not feeling guilty about it.

That French reputation goes way back, maybe to medieval times, too.

[BillStein]

6. Thank you!

I'd forgotten about all that licentious French stuff...

[trof]

8. And don't forget "French postcards".

"Long before pin-ups, Playboy, or the Internet, enterprising Parisians at the turn of the 20th-century turned the relatively new invention of the camera toward the female nude. Artfully posed with classical architecture or in flirtatious dishabille with stockings and lingerie, the winking models embody the erotic fantasies of a repressed society.

Some of the women shown are demure and shy, wearing a slip or low-cut blouse-a great tease in an age when showing an ankle was scandalous. Their daring glimpses of decolletage carry a particular charge, so rare in today's world of overexposure.

These cards were sold, often in packets, at street kiosks and under tabac counters, hush-hush but nevertheless ubiquitous. As foreigners flooded the city in the early part of the 20th-century, the cards became cherished souvenirs that were secretly collected and shared among men abroad.

This is when the phrase "French postcards" became a euphemistic code for erotic nude images. These lovely ladies evoke a campy nostalgia that celebrates a healthy, voluptuous ideal of sensual feminine beauty. More retro than raunchy, French Postcards has the saucy fun of a naughty valentine, sure to charm and entertain a friend or lover."
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/143008.French_Postcards

[bluedigger]

9. And "French Letters"

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=french%20letter

[trof]

11. And the 'French Pox'.

Syphilis

The French call it the 'English Pox'.

[RedCloud]

7. My French bosom buddy always says it.

And she should know! Pardon my French for using "bosom"

[dimbear]

10. My guess: Norman Conquest. Sneaking away from your army unit is called

taking French leave. Of course, if you're French, what you do is " filez comme l'anglais."

(For nonspeakers, that would mean taking English leave.)

And so it goes.

[laundry_queen]

12. I always thought

it was because the French word for seal was "phoque" and, well, when you say "fuck" and you say "pardon my french" you can pretend you were actually saying "phoque".

Oh, do I remember the giggles in grade 1 when we learned what a "phoque" was.