Daily Blague

Between the French-English and English-French halves of my Larousse Advanced, there's a Communication Guide/Guide de Communication in which templates for letters, resumes, and other exchanges proper to the customs of each language are set forth. I don't consult it very often, although I ought to, because it has a solid page on telephone etiquette, something that never fails to stymie me when I have to call M le Prof to change or cancel a French lesson. What I won't need anytime, soon, is the pair of pages on SMS messages.

If these weren't spelled out in proper French, they'd remain mostly indecipherable to me. To be sure, I didn't do much better with the ones in English.

¶ ght le p1, rentr asap

¶ slt, rdv o 6ne GspR b1 q t dak sete D6D, a+. (If you can figure out "sete," you're French and under thirty.)

¶ j t'M kestu X G tatan tjs au resto, biz.

¶ ya 1 blem, l'ordi e KC Rstp pcq G c pas keskonfe.

¶ O k1 msg G le sa V, t oqp ta oublié kestufé???

What a luxury that oublié is. A complete word! Don't try to work out a system here; G can mean je or j'ai.

PS: When buying dictionaries, don't screw up as I did. I ordered my first copy of Larousse Advanced from Amazon in France, and, to have a handier copy at the other end of the apartment, a second copy of what I thought would be the same book at Barnes & Noble across the street. In each book, the domestic-to-foreign section is at the rear. In other words, the dico in the bedroom begins with English-French. Oy!