le countdown

Bonjour. 

"I wonder ......."

So it's 4 weeks to go and le countdown heats up. Saturday. Haircut. Last one before I go to France. I wonder what it is like going to the hairdresser in France. Will I be only able to communicate in French? My communication skills will be put to the test.

I made an appointment to have my hair cut at Rodney Wayne in the mall. (A plunge in faith that the Universe is not cruel.) The french language is a thing of beauty. Many beautiful female names have been woven into cultures all over the world. I always delight when I meet Fleur, Aimee, J'aime, Elle, Claire, Gille, etc. It was with glee when I made the appointment for a haircut with a stylist named, Desiree. My glee mutated into despair as the person at the desk wrote her name down on a reminder card: desrae. I couldn't believe my eyes. The silken desirable french name had morphed into an english version. Oh la la.

This led me to realise that there were many, many versions of words from different languages that had been adapted to suit the person's own culture. So I need not be offended as the original poetic, silken version is changed. 

Take for example my own surname. Runnerstrum. A beautiful swedish name originally translated as running stream. What a lovely image of nature that creates in my fertile imagination. I wonder if I could change it back to its original version. Clearly, the word was made more functional by dropping the dipthong off the "o". Runnerstrom. (Despite all efforts to master the skill of how to insert accents and diphthongs on this computer, I can't. ) I think I will use the opportunity whilst I am in France to revert the spelling of my surname back to its origin. It may well be that it is easier to pronounce it this way when speaking in french. "Madame Runnerstrom", tres chic!