THE LANGUAGE OF MOLIÈRE

I Got the Giggles in Hélène’s French Class

The sound I produced while trying to pronounce the French R was like something from The Exorcist

Publicity still from The Exorcist, Wikimedia Commons, Public Domain

It’s been a while since I’ve had one of those fits of uncontrollable giggles, the kind that, as a schoolgirl, would send me out of the classroom and into the office of the headmistress.

The alien growl that came from deep in my throat sounded like a demonic Linda Blair just before she vomits green bile and has to be exorcised. It cracked me up. Everyone else laughed too, including Hélène, but I couldn’t stop laughing.

Even after she’d moved on and we (not me) were all rolling our r’s to her satisfaction, I’d think of the possessed growl and start laughing again; next I’d be levitating, and Hélène would have to call in a priest.

Images from Chat GPT

Rayon is a French word for stripe, but it’s also used to denote various sections of a supermarket — le rayon de fromage, le rayon vêtements (cheese and clothing departments), for example. There’s a nuance with rayon, Chat GPT helpfully explains, and stripe is one of them. But of course, it’s French.

Historically and descriptively, Chat continues, un rayon means a ray or line spreading outward: a ray of sunlight → un rayon de soleil or a stripe or streak in a pattern.

Fine, very helpful, but I’m already thinking about ways I can avoid rayon altogether — as I try to do with cuillère, which, if pronounced incorrectly, can be mistaken for bottom or backside. Easy to see how this could lead to embarrassment in a social situation.

But back to my Exorcist growl. After it stopped being funny, it began to annoy me. Why can’t I do it? Or, more technically, why can’t I produce a voiced uvular fricative? Answer: I didn’t know there was such a thing.

Mais oui! It’s simply a sound made in the back of your throat. Or, as my best friend Chat explains: The back of your tongue approaches the uvula — the dangly thing —and air passes through to create a rough friction sound.

Helpful? I’m not so sure. If it feels impossible (which it does), it’s because my brain has spent 80 odd years using the English R, tongue forward and curled — while the French R requires the tongue flat and pulled back.

Thus, when I try the French sound, my brain either does what it’s always done and produces an English R, or overcompensates and makes the gargling, growling Exorcist sound.

Chat GPT offers a few handy, dandy tips to get the hang of the French R, like imitating the quiet purring of a cat deep in your throat. OK, that sounds strange; the purring cat is not actually deep in your throat, it’s just the sound. I try it, and now my throat is sore, I have a headache, and all my brain wants to do right now is take a nap — un dodo.

My brain is developing a deep dislike for the language of Molière.

My brain is very, very sleepy. If I snore (ronfler), which I probably will, would the sound emitting from deep in my throat sound anything like the French R?

Maybe, but hardly a solution.