Bon-zhooooorrrrrrr

So Minks has a new French teacher whose accent was honed in Wisconsin. She comes home imitating her: "Bon-zhooooorrrrrrr" and I wince, being the awful snob I am (this I know I inherited from my mother who has always been very good at languages, speaks many and always wanted me to get a job as a translator at the United Nations despite the fact that I didn't really have a natural affinity for it. Yes I got an A in my German O Level and a B in my French A level and yes I can pass as Norwegian as long as my twelve-year-old vocabulary is not scrutinized but I didn't really feel the UN calling). But I do think that it is not asking to much that the person that is teaching my daughter French at the cripplingly expensive private school in which she is enrolled, could have at least visited the country. "You know it's very hard to find people that speak French like a Parisian native" says the head of the language department, except he says 'Par-eee-zhun." I roll with the punches and humor him. "She is a deeply passionate Francophile" he continues and I know I'm going to play dead and tell him I appreciate his input, blah, blah, blah, when I just want to say "Tell me why my good-natured and uncomplaining daughter is hating her French class so vehemently?" No doubt I will download boatloads of Francoise Hardy and France Gall and Johnny Hallyday from iTunes and blast it about the house in a subtly aggressive way of imparting l'accent sans le fromage de Madison to mon petit chou.