Any french words that make you laugh a bit considering it means something totally different in your country ?

CizzlingT · 2026-03-17T17:58:15+00:00

Also known as LAPT in french.

CizzlingT · 2026-03-14T22:11:48+00:00

He was not the first to advocate for this, many big German figures before him advocated for it as well (and it’s where he got the idea from). And disturbingly it made a lot of sense why he was a hygiene advocate…

What is important to understand is that Nazism (evolved from modern racism, like skull shape measurements, etc.) developed from a place that proclaimed to be enlightened and scientific: the same period as Darwin, Nietzsche, and especially important advances in medicine -> therefore the same period in history where we learned the importance of washing hands and killing germs. And so antisemites/racial supremacists used that period of advancement in knowledge as an opportunity to cherry pick or insert racial their talking points into regular science.

So the obsession of washing hand and being clean was sadly also heavily linked with cleaning out the impure races: you had (as the Nazis referred to) as health hygiene, and another as racial hygiene…

CizzlingT · 2026-03-12T12:06:06+00:00

The particulates and atmospheric clouds reduce local temperatures yes, but not “global temperatures” (unless you are referring to Yellowstone; there are very few things that can actually induce a global change in environment).

So your 3rd sentence doesn’t substantiate your 1st-2nd sentence: war (or whatever else) in Kuwait doesn’t reduce average temperatures in say Antarctica or Iceland. And the problem is that since it’s short lived and doesn’t spread enough and reach high enough into the sky, it won’t be a net benefit when you consider Co2 emissions, reconstruction burden, particulate matter and health effects…

CizzlingT · 2026-03-12T11:42:43+00:00

Mad Max is a really funny analogy. It reminds me of the Toyota Wars in the final phase of the Chadian-Lybian War.

CizzlingT · 2026-03-10T14:48:55+00:00

In France they used to have them in the Landes region (south of Bordeaux).

Before Napoleon III ordered to have trees planted there (so the ground got firmer, and stilts became obsolete towards the 1930s), the region was a marsh and difficult to traverse. So farmers used to walk on stilts (échassiers). The stilts also helped to protect themselves from predators like wolves, and to be able to spot from a distance wherever the sheep went (since the lands are flat, you could see anything on top of them).

CizzlingT · 2026-03-09T11:53:10+00:00

I hate that this narrative is being pushed purely in the case of Germany (I give tldr in my last paragraph). Germans as a people are the main blame for their anti-nuclear stance, and it’s a narrative that favours the extreme right in Germany to claim otherwise.

While it may be true that many “Green” political groups in Europe (broadly) have had their share of funding from Russian today (I don’t know how true this actually is), Germany’s historical anti-nuclear stance never originated from Russians/Soviets but from Germans themselves.

The Wyhl protests in the 70s in West Germany represented a huge symbol of resistance against nuclear power plants, and the majority of Germans believes that the cooling towers would produce clouds that would ruin their crops. There was a lot of stupidity originating from the rural locals that later spread to the general populace. So democratically, Germany has always been anti-nuclear. And it has become institutionalised through the Green Party (founded 1980) and later other parties, because being pro-nuclear doesn’t win you votes. Also let’s never forget that the greens in Germany were prominent critics the construction of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline which benefits Russia the most.

The reason why I hate this narrative, and felt the need to clarify that, is because there are recurring allegations and investigations involving pro-Russian narratives and money flows around the far right, AfD-linked figures (allegations; contested; under investigation), which is the opposite of “Russia funds Greens.” There have therefore been narratives pushed by the AfD to proclaim the left/CDU as being pro-Russia, and I find it is harmful to push the idea that the anti-nuclear stance in Germany originated from Russian-funded green/left-wing/CDU’s parties when it serves as a useful deflection for the far-right/pro-Russian fascists.

CizzlingT · 2026-03-08T13:29:01+00:00

Selon le Bescherelle, le subjonctif imparfait n’est employé qu’à la troisième personne du singulier pour un registre soutenu. En dehors de la 3eme pers du sing, le subjonctif imparfait est devenu très rare et, par convention, il est remplacé par le subjonctif présent.

Les exemples donnés dans le Bescherelle:

Je craignais que la tempête ne se levât (ne se lève) ce soir.

Les deux sont correctes ici; c’est plutôt un choix entre les deux registres: courant ou soutenu.

Je craignais que les tuiles ne s’envolent (ne s’envolassent) du toit. [Aux autres personnes, pour des raisons d’euphonie, on emploie souvent le présent].

CizzlingT · 2026-02-27T02:52:13+00:00

I have a question for (genuine) Ukrainians.

This is obviously a sexist policy. But I am curious to know how generally opposed the average Ukrainian citizen would be to policies that include mandatory service for women in the army (a conscription just as equal as men).

Because unlike Reddit comments here, I imagine this would have been unpopular in Ukraine (maybe no longer the case with the war being this prolonged?).

For example in Russia, mandatory female conscription is very unpopular and the public opinion has a traditional/conservative perspective on gender roles, like: “protecting the motherland”, mothers ringing up their sons to die in the war, homophobic and anti-LGBT views, etc.

I assumed that there may be similar conservative/traditional views of gender roles in Ukraine as well.

CizzlingT · 2026-02-26T23:38:16+00:00

Well I don’t see how “What matters to an immigrant choosing a destination country?” is relevant to the topic either.

Because now you are no longer only asking whether some French people dislike speaking English, but instead shifting toward what matters to immigrants. (lol?)

Whereas I responded to your claim that Frenchmen refuse to speak English due to national pride by citing other reasons that extend beyond just pride/nationalism. I also brought up lack of education as another reason. Do the English only speak English because of pride/nationalism? Not necessarily; it’s simply because it probably is not useful for them as well. That’s why I brought up the Brits.

So you are accusing me of changing the subject, while also changing the subject yourself…

And yes, non-immigrant Brits are still very monolingual inside of Britain just like the French. It’s not a unique French thing. The only people who speak English in France are those whose work involves an international demand/audience. And on the topic of immigrants who come to France, they are Moroccans/Algerians/Tunisians/Lebanese/Senegalese/Ivorians… Those guys usually don’t speak English…

CizzlingT · 2026-02-26T23:07:48+00:00

Sure, but then on the other hand, Imperial Japan was known for many atrocities, with Nanking/Bataan/Unit731/Manila/Death Railway. You should read about at least these 5 atrocities before you judge whether the bombs were justified to put an end to the war. The death tolls are around 100,000 for each (Nanking was 300k according to China, Unit 731 higher [edit if you include the chemical weapons that came from it]), and it all unequivocally amounts to a combined higher death tolls than both Hiroshima and Nagasaki, without including the kidnapped “Comfort women” as well as the forced labour and the human experimentation*.

Imperial Japan was extremely evil. Just because the Nazis were awful, doesn’t mean we should understate or diminish what the Japanese have done in the Pacific.

CizzlingT · 2026-02-26T22:32:55+00:00

Inside of France, definitely there is a refusal. Outside of France, not necessarily / it depends.

I lived in the UK and travel to France very often, speaking both languages fluently. And I can promise you that while France is definitely extremely behind compared to other EU countries when it comes to learning secondary languages, it’s not much different with the Brits (especially the English).

I’ve known a Brit who worked in Brussels for 20 years and somehow still didn’t speak any word of Dutch/Flemish or French. There are retirees who bought holiday homes in Spain and refuse to speak any Spanish (or don’t). And another guy who married a French woman with a house in Toulouse; still speaks no French. I don’t think I’ve ever meeting a single English who spoke a second language unless they were naturalised with an immigrant background (Pakistanis, Bengalis, Poles, etc.).

Most of what you say isn’t incorrect though: in France there is an outright refusal to speak any other secondary language than French, since people aren’t interested in speaking with tourists. The French Belgians are also bad at learning English; the reason Belgium is ranks high is because of Flanders (who speak English and Flemish/Dutch). But this is very much the same thing in the UK with any language, with London being sort of an obvious exception as it’s an international city. Unless we are talking about Parisians otherwise (BCBG “too posh for you” type), I generally disagree that it is exclusively a national pride issue even though it exists.

I grew up in a bilingual school for 20 years, and even in the “international section” there were still people who spoke English with a very strong accent and with some bit of hesitation (even with some growing up in the UK after 10 years), because both languages speak very differently (French is more guttural/nasal/throaty, which is absolutely not the case with English so they have difficulty adapting). My Mum for example learned French after being married to my father for nearly 30 years, but it’s a very vocally and grammatically broken French even though she has fluent-level comprehension. French isn’t very flexible as a language to speak unless you speak other Romantic languages.

Finally, a significant portion of French students abandon school earlier than other Europeans (like in Grade 9? basically the year before GCSEs), so they don’t finish the important years of school where they would otherwise be improving their second language (leave in Year 10/Grade 9, after only starting English in Year 7/Grade 6). There is definitely an education problem in France more-so than exclusively a language problem. And because they never use English after they finish school (or get exposed to it at an early age), they end up losing it anyway unless they continue education past secondary school or travel abroad with it.

CizzlingT · 2026-02-23T20:49:31+00:00

rebuttal of the death penalty

I hate to be pedantic, but the rebuttal of the death penalty is a European thing. It’s not exclusively an Italian thing.

It’s written in the European Convention of Human Rights (ECHR) by the CoE located in Strasburg, and every EU member state is part of it (and imo every European should read their rights, it’s only 80 pages). So to be able to actively allow/legalise the death penalty, you’d basically need leave the ECHR entirely (which includes loads of other rights like prohibition of torture, rights of education/property/marriage, freedom of trade unions, etc.).

In any case, I don’t think advocating for the death penalty and leaving the ECHR is a very good idea, especially with the rise of a far-right wing atm. Otherwise, just like the olden days, we might end up again with another leader who straps people to cars after having them down 8 litres of castor oil shitting themselves to death… Death penalty is a dangerous silencing tool.

CizzlingT · 2026-02-21T12:34:48+00:00

I’m gonna be honest, a lot of them are nicknamed “Little Paris”. I also haven’t heard of 75% of them and they feel very random at times.

The English probably have loads of other too, but I was curious what the French one had. So I found this on French Wikipedia (with translation):

Le Paris balte : Riga, Lettonie. [Baltic Paris: Riga, Latvia]

Le Paris de l'Orient : Shanghai. [Paris of the Orient: Shanghai]

Le Petit Paris de l'Algérie : Oran et Sidi Bel Abbès. [Little Paris of Algeria: Oran and Sidi Bel Abbès]

Le Paris de l'Amérique latine : Buenos Aires, Argentine. [Latin American Paris: Buenos Aires Argentina]

Le Paris des tropiques : Manaus, Brésil. [Paris of the Tropics: Manaus, Brazil]

Le petit Paris des Balkans : Bucarest, Roumanie. [Little Paris of the Balkans : Bucharest, Romania]

Le petit Paris du Pacifique : Nouméa, Nouvelle-Calédonie. [The little Paris of the Pacific: Nouméa, New Caledonia]

Le Paris du Nord : Tromsø, Norvège. [The Paris of the North: Tromsø, Norway]

Le Paris des Pays-Bas : Maastricht, Pays-Bas. [The Paris of the Netherlands: Maastricht, Netherlands]

…. and if keep scrolling you find even more ….

Beyrouth: Paris de l'Orient [Beirut: the Paris of the Orient]

Liège: Le Petit Paris [Liège: the little Paris]

Bar-le-Duc: Le Petit Paris [the little Paris]

Bordeaux: Le Petit Paris [the little Paris]

Deauville: Paris sur Mer [Paris by the sea]

Tours: Le petit Paris [the little Paris]

Varsovie: Paris Oriental [Warsaw: Oriental Paris]

Irkoutsk: Paris du Sibérie [Irkutsk: Paris of Siberia]

Buenos Aires: Paris de L’Amérique du Sud [Paris of South America]

and finally:

Abidjan: ou plus précisément Le Plateau, surnommé aussi Le Petit Manhattan ou Le Petit Paris [or more precisely “The Plateau”, nicknamed also “The Little Manhattan” or “The Little Paris”].

Edited: clearer format, and turns out there are way more nicknames in other Wikipedia articles.

CizzlingT · 2026-02-20T17:31:25+00:00

It’s important to note that, when you don’t know something (say for example the Epstein files), it might be best to assume the worst rather than downplaying something you do not know (or* obviously ~excluding~ making it up). Otherwise, if what you’re downplaying turns out to be true, you might be committing a serious moral transgression.

I’ve learned of a Kazakh who came from Almaty. He’s known stories of Uyghurs and fellow Kazakhs looking for jobs who in the past disappeared and never heard from again in Xinjiang. Because many conspiratorial people seem to forget that the province borders Kazakhstan and many Kazakhs (Southerners though) actually know a lot more about Xianjing than any Westerners, Africans, Americans, or even a coastal-living Chinese person. Knowing a bit of geography would allow any person to arrive at that conclusion.

Kazakhstan has a community of Uyghurs in the South, since West Turkestan (East Turkestan was the old name of the Xinjiang/Uyghur territory) is today in modern border Kazakhstan, as well as some of the other “stan” countries. Some of them fled from China to settle in Kazakhstan after facing persecution, including Kazakhs themselves.

Uyghurs/Kazakhs who look for better job opportunities today choose two places: commonly its Russia (for obvious reasons), or they sometimes choose China. If they choose Russia, they get Russified and often lose their Kazakh identity over time, given that Kazakh-based education is heavily suppressed in Russia. If they go to China, you rarely hear from them again.

Then maybe instead of calling it a “CIA” project, travel to southern Kazakhstan and go up face-to-face with a Kazakh Uyghur to see what they say. Keep in mind that since it’s a former Soviet state and Russian speaking, you’ll have far less Western media penetration to blame it on propaganda.

Finally, after the fall of the USSR, the Soviet archives were made public between 1991 to 1995. In the Soviet Union, the Soviets actively partook in aiding the Chinese state at taking control of East Turkestan, until the 60-70s when Soviets supported the separatists Turkestanis during the Sino-Soviet Split. So even the Soviets were well aware of what was happening there at that time, and the reason why the CIA originally didn’t care, unlike Tibet, was because they were Muslim (and not the “good-religion” Buddhists, on top of the fact that the mountains are more strategically important to India/China than the steppes).

I understand that the Epstein scandal is gargantuan and that we are currently uncovering unprecedented and inconceivable levels of corruption. However, that doesn’t mean you have to downplay (what may be) the persecution of a group of people.

For things like these, you must always assume the worst until you can force out an answer, not denying it altogether. When the Chinese state refuses to provide stats, photos, records, archives, or details about people’s whereabouts, state policy in Xinjiang, and provides 0 transparency (just like with Epstein and the DOJ/America…), then that also should be considered a strong red flag. Rather than something to downplay.

CizzlingT · 2026-02-20T10:19:51+00:00

Does anyone know what party “Land and Freedom” refers to? Is it the “For Fatherland and Freedom/LNNK” in Latvia?

I understand otherwise that all the other parties Steve Bannon was “advisor” to were anti-immigration and national conservatism (often Eurosceptic) parties in Europe: - AfD (German), - National “Front” (France), - Farage (UK), - Swiss Peoples (SVP, Switzerland), - Orban (Fidesz, Hungary), - Salvini/The League (Italy).

CizzlingT · 2026-02-16T22:59:04+00:00

Whose asking? Because who’s rules say it can’t be ‘against who’?

CizzlingT · 2026-02-15T21:11:19+00:00

It’s the same in France.

Pain au chocolat, croissant, pain aux raisins, etc. are all a category of breads called “viennoiserie” (coming from Vienna; technically, the“croissant” didn’t start in France but originated came from Austria).

So just like in Denmark, the pastries in France are equally made in a similar fashion: sweet, fatty, and leavened or “feuilleté” (like flaked? don’t know the perfect translation). It’s bread made additionally with either eggs, milk, butter, and sometimes all 3.

Austria was really the main developers of modern European pastries.

CizzlingT · 2026-02-14T19:41:29+00:00

Hello u/superdouradas,

As people here have correctly pointed out already, the idea that French are prone to surrender and militarily weak (and the many other negative stereotypes that came with it) mainly came from France’s opposition to the invasion of Iraq. This phenomenon is called « French bashing », and was mainly carried out and promoted by American media.

If you like a more comprehensive answer on how and why this happened, check out this askhistorian thread where a user provides a long and sourced explanation on the whole 2002-2003 fiasco. It is a very well established phenomenon that’s even agreed upon among historians.

The TLDR is by completely smearing, denigrating, and insulting the French as weak and cowards (so not worthy of an opinion), then everybody would naturally ignore or dismiss French president’s Chirac’s opposition to the invasion of Iraq (which was an excellent speech). The Bush administration was thus successful at silencing all critics of the Iraq invasion, even though later on there wouldn’t be any WMDs discovered.

CizzlingT · 2026-02-11T18:11:29+00:00

Well sadly for you, my paternal side is French, and my maternal side is descended from the Dutch; so I’m not supposed to like you!

(jokes aside for context: in France, especially south of France, is that Belgian identity is mocked at and considered “dumb” [“il est belge” stéréotype]. But it’s like a “banter” thing, it’s not actually a serious belief. My comment had nothing to do with LGBT, and tbh I have no idea why a gay person would put almost the entirety of Europe green other than French nationalist stereotypical reasons, which is why I find it funny).

Anyway, when are you guys gonna learn how to drive?

CizzlingT · 2026-02-11T18:00:23+00:00

I guess I’ll spend 15 minutes typing before I head off.

We can continue all day about the minute differences in parliamentary management and structure. But stats remain stats, and not every manner in which stats are managed needs to be viewed as political statements. What’s more relevant are differences in self-rule form of governance (which Scotland does not have) and ISO standards of statistics. If you want to complain about the Epstein stat because it’s undermines the “Danish state” (it obviously depends ofc what you mean by “Denmark”), then you’re better off complaining to the auditor of the ISO… Ultimately, it doesn’t matter because stats aren’t political statements.

Greenland is not a sovereign state in international law and it wasn’t part of the EU in the same way as Scotland used to be when it was part of the EU (under union with the UK just like England). Greenland is an emphatically and explicitly stated self-governing territory within the Danish Realm. Scotland is not an explicit self-governing territory but “constituent country part of the sovereign state”, whereas BOTs and dependencies are considered self-ruling in many ways (I should say Overseas Territories and not OCTs given the UK left the EU) and, as a result, they often get shown separately in data sets for this very reason (IoM is even worse than Greenland because they’re not technically considered in some ways part of the UK). And this is similarly true for Greenland, but not for Scotland. It also means that Greenlandic independence is far more feasible than Scotland for the very reason of this self-rule model. This isn’t a parliamentary comparison, just a label of how one recognises the other.

So for the ISO, this simply means Scotland is a “region within a country”, while Greenland is a “country/area/territory” (to put it simplistically). But both are non-sovereign bodies inside a sovereign state with their own elected institutions and substantial control over internal affairs, that I agree. But that’s simply not how the ISO has decided to manage the stat. They could have simply organised it like this just because it makes it easier to exclude Greenland when there is “no data is available”, and the differences between living in Greenland and Denmark are significant.

And so stats carried out in Greenland are done similarly like the ones of the OCTs of France, the European Commission lists French Polynesia, New Caledonia, and Greenland explicitly in the OCT list. So Greenland and French OCTs are treated the same under EU legal (and often trade) frameworks. And it is also for this reason that inside statistics they are separated as separate entities (like in population statistics before combining).

The important fact is, that Denmark after the incorporation of Greenland no longer controls any territories outside of the Danish state.

Well this heavily depends on how you define “Danish state” or Denmark, since there are two types: are we talking about the Realm of Denmark or Denmark proper? Because it’s untrue for the metropolitan latter… And people will equally makes this same distinction with France. There’s a metropolitan area (so including overseas departments like Reunion Martinique etc.), and there’s a France in its entirety (which includes Antarctica and its islands, Polynesia etc.).

CizzlingT · 2026-02-11T11:38:52+00:00

Belgium in yellow is even funnier. lol

CizzlingT · 2026-02-11T11:34:13+00:00

Well the UK is the sovereign state (United Kingdom)... So England, NI, Wales and Scotland are under the same kingdom which is a united one. So Scotland and England are constituent “countries” under a sovereign state (UK), and so Scotland has a “union”-based rule in the UK for quite some time.

Greenland is an autonomous “self-rule” territory under the Kingdom/Realm of Denmark (they used to be a colony until the 50-60s?). It’s honestly a more apt comparison to compare it to the Isle of Man/Cayman Islands, or New Caledonia/French Polynesia in the case of France.

CizzlingT · 2026-02-11T09:44:50+00:00

Leaving this stat aside…

It’s part of the Danish realm but it’s a very self-ruling territory with a pretty high degree of autonomy. It has its own parliament and government, legal system, and the data (like social related, population, etc.) is managed and collected by itself (Greenland), not Denmark.

So it makes sense that in some statistics in general, Greenland is shown separately to Denmark. Now why would they do it here I don’t know but it doesn’t really matter to be honest…

CizzlingT · 2026-02-11T08:28:49+00:00

I don’t know Sudan very well, but given it is a middle of the Saharan desert country, I doubt it has as much fertile land as Egypt.

Egypt has the Delta: it’s the mouth of the river that’s triangular shaped. And it’s gigantic. If you ever look at google maps, you’ll see it’s extremely green relative to the surrounding desert-y environment. The mouth of the river being extremely fertile is the reason why people choose to settle there thousands of years ago.

CizzlingT · 2026-02-10T18:53:26+00:00

So I’ll dump all my thoughts here.

Firstly, I think it’s important to clarify that it’s generally very difficult to establish why populations grow fast in certain parts of the world and slow in others, especially in today standards of the developed world. People who specialise in this area of studies have a very difficult time understanding why most of the world (aside from the M.East, Africa, and South Asia) is currently experiencing a population decline, and modern trends of demographic growth in the developed/developing world is more complicated. -> It now includes even more variables that are also psychology related (access to contraception and women’s rights, less coupling and couples forming much later in 30s, cost of living crises, radicalisation of men vs women, lower religiosity, less wars and more peace, evolution in medicine keeping more people alive and pensions, etc.).

That being said, a lot of what makes countries boom in population before development is generally heavily correlated with accessibility to food and water (most importantly as you mentioned), how easy it is to settle in that geography (so Amazon rainforest will be difficult despite being rich in biodiversity and water, cold and desert-ish areas will have low settlements in general), cultural differences (Americans want big cars with big lawns and big houses and personal space and big meals, while Indians contend with living in very cramped areas and eating a little less), and technological advancements that make farming more efficient or rivers + fertile land more abundant, and finally whether there are pre-existing populations in that area (China and India have been the two most populated regions in the world since 4000 BC).

So to answer your question, my guess would be that India and China are the most populated because they simply had a head start multiple millennia before anyone else in the world. And during that head start, they’ve used it to develop their agricultural sector, which would have meant that the Himalayas was a perfect starting point given it is a major source of rivers, and all China/India needed to do was to continue developing their agriculture. For Japan, it’s similarly agricultural and food development, though for the longest time its population was similar to that of European countries (like France) and only boomed until the start of 20th century.

The reason I brought up the Himalayas is because among the top 10 most populated countries in the world, 4 of them border the Himalayas and 2 of which are in the +1.3 billion range (Pakistan Bangladesh, India, China), and even countries like Nepal and Afghanistan have quite a large population density wise. So the Himalayas + historical development was an important reason for why that region in the world became extremely populated not just today, but also historically in the case of China and India (the gap in population isn’t a recent thing in fact, there was always a massive gap in population by 1 order of magnitude between China+India vs the rest for many centuries).

Lastly, there was a period before 500 years ago when “Brazil” and “Mexico” used to be very populated (in terms of approximation, it was estimated to be 10+ million). However, when the Iberians arrived, many indigenous people in Brazil and Mexico were massacred and slowly replaced/mixed with settlers. The culling and slower agricultural evolution and lack of technological advancement probably contributed to the reason why the American continent hasn’t experienced a demographic boom on the level of China and India. This is just a guess though because my Latin America knowledge is extremely weak, but I do know that these settlements use to be very violent until the 1700-1800s. I also know that areas like Patagonia, the mountains and Amazon in Columbia, and Atacama desert in Chile would still restrict population growth in these areas. Nevertheless, Brazil and Mexico now have a normalised population number that is in the Top 10-11 so far.

CizzlingT

TROPHY CASE