Fighting Elephants

On Friday, as I have already said in a previous post, we were obliged to listen in to the mobile phone conversations of a lady on the bus from Porto to Vigo. At one point as she loudly lamented so problem in her life which she had decided was insurmountable, I heard her say, “Yo contra elefantes no lucho” = “I don’t fight elephants”. I tucked the expression away for another day. 

 Last night I went to the Alliance Française in Vigo to attend the monthly book club. I hadn’t actually read the book. Had I realised back in the summer that I would be here for this month’s meeting I would have collected a copy and read it but that was not to be. Anyway, I was really going to say hello to some old friends rather than have an in-depth discussion about a book. 

 The book in question was “Les Tribulations d’une Caissière” = “The Trials and Tribulations of a Supermarket Cashier”. (Incidentally, I wonder why the English has both trials AND tribulations while the French only have tribulations. Is it that we are a more problem-laden, or at any rate more pessimistic, nation? Or is this another example of the richness of the English language, having several words for the same thing?) It was written by a thirty something young French woman who worked part time in a supermarket to finance her university studies. Having achieved her degree, she found there was no other work available and so she continued to work in the supermarket. This in itself led to much discussion about the job situation in Spain, France and just about everywhere else in the European Union.

Meanwhile the overqualified cashier wrote a book, making wry observations about her job: one way of fighting elephants I suppose. Mind you, as our group organiser kept reminding us, her book is amusing but can’t really be called great literature so I don’t suppose she’s going to have a great new career. However, she has the chance to make a bit of money. After all, a fair number of poorly written best-sellers have made their authors rich. I wish her the best of luck! 

On the subject of badly written stuff, I must comment on a discussion I am involved in on Facebook. For quite a long time I have had a running argument with my daughter about the past tense of the verb “to text”, as used about messages sent on mobile phones. I maintain that if you use that verb (and, yes, I have reluctantly accepted the transformation of a noun into a verb) then the past tense in “texted”, not just “text”. You can’t say, “I text you last night”. It’s just plain wrong. 

Now last night, exasperated by several examples of this mis-use I moaned about it on my Facebook status. The result has been a whole host of comments back, almost all agreeing with me and some raising other queries, such as what is the plural of the noun “text”; is it “texts” or “textes”? Now that’s just silly. Those of us who taught the old A-level modern language courses received lists of “set texts” every year. 

And I am reliably informed that my original grumble is the subject of a wider debate. There is even a forum about it: The verb 'to text (someone)'- what's the past tense? - General Discussion - Digital Spy Forums

 Clearly this is an elephant worth fighting.