Georges and I never fight. We really don't. That's not to say we don't disagree from time to time. Our one ongoing "battle" is over this ERRONEOUS belief the French seem to have about the health risks of "courants d'air" or what we'd call a "draught" or even a "breeze".
Ask any Anglo ex-pat living in France and they will most likely be able to tell you the same story: how this or that French person they know (even one they may be living with) INSISTS that air currents are what make you sick. You think that wonderful scarf your favorite Frenchie is wearing is all about a superior sense of fashion? Not on your life; they are just covering up their necks to avoid exposure to any potential wafting of air that might end up giving them pneumonia. The French aversion to air conditioning? They're deathly afraid the cold draughts will give them a sinus infection.
We "enlightened" Anglos know that it's the GERMS (which may or may not be transmitted by air) that cause illness. It's not the air itself. And all air is not created equal. Yes, the recirculated air in a sealed airplane at 38,000 feet IS likely to force you to share some other passenger's H1N1 flu germs. But it's NOT the fact that the air is MOVING that is the problem, so much as what's IN the air. You can catch an air-born virus without a breeze. Most fresh air and breezes are actually GOOD for you, and much healthier than stale, non-moving air.
Try telling that to any Frenchman or woman committed to their age-old idea about courants d'air, though. It doesn't matter that the French are usually very scientifically minded about most things, this is one cultural myth that refuses to die despite hard scientific evidence to disprove their belief (much as with their attachment to smoking even though there is a big "FUMER TUE" [SMOKING KILLS] label plastered to every pack of cigarettes sold in France). This courants d'air thing is just one argument that is impossible to win in this country, because among other things, the French just hate to be wrong about anything. And they will find a way to defend their point of view right to the ground, no matter what hard proof the opposition can produce.
Just now, I read aloud to Georges a snippet of an article about old health rules for children that no longer apply; you know, things like "Don't sit so close to the TV, it will ruin your eyes". The last one was that one where your mother used to tell you to bundle up before you went out in the cold because "you'll catch cold"... and how that is just completely untrue, that it's really the GERMS that make us sick, not the temperature of the air or whether there's a breeze or whether the AIR CONDITIONING is on. I was all smug about having this evidence, printed in a noted American magazine, to prove my point.
Georges didn't skip a beat: "Yes, my love, but that is in AMERICA."
I bow my head in defeat once again. Because I should have realized: this is la belle France, where apparently normal rules of science do not always apply. My French teacher tried to warn me about this, only I thought she was talking just about the language -- in France, there is the rule, and then there is the exception to the rule.
Silly me.
