This tongue-in-cheek video should get you bouncing around this Monday morning. 🙂

.Note: Hopefully those of a sensitive disposition like myself* will forgive the rather non-politically correct blip near the end… 

Credit: Hat tip to Daniel Knight, litigator and admiralty attorney in Texas, @fdknight, for bringing the video to my attention.

In the same vein, if slightly more genteel, TV5 Monde runs a fascinating regular feature called Merci professeur ! Presented by Bernard Cerquiglini, an eminent French linguist, each episode in the series of 700 short videos (generally around 2 minutes long) examines a point of the French language.  You can also take pot luck using the “S’en remettre au hasard!” button. Useful example: “ci-joint“.

Bernard Cerquiglini, éminent linguiste et spécialiste reconnu de la langue française, révèle et explique chaque jour une curiosité verbale : que la lumière soit faite sur l’origine opaque des mots et expressions de la langue de Racine ! Quant aux accords pièges et aux orthographes étranges, le Professeur leur trouve une excuse et nous réconcilie avec le verbe et la règle de grammaire, à coups d’histoires souvent croustillantes.

You might be interested in this interview with Bernard Cerquiglini about the series, or a report he authored in 1999 for the French Ministry of Culture and Communication – Les langues de la France.

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* [It transpires that the point in question is offensive only to Brits, and apologies have been made – see this illuminating post over at Language Log]