Today I don't have much to say, so I thought I would ask for opinions about this interesting comment on my French-English wordlist post from Flip. First what I wrote.
French words with no real English equivalent
le patronat [the class of bosses, as if they're separate from normal people; I find this concept very French]
Flip wrote:
About "le patronat", I don't know in usa, but here if you look some statistics, I would not be surprised to discover that the bosses are bosses from father to son, too, from ex-aristocratic families (with a particule devant le nom)... This sound a cliché, but here I think that the patrons are often (but not always) from the same social class : the rich.
And I don't feel that the average french is the one that think that he CAN DO IT ! Maybe in USA it's different and creating a company, even small is someone that you fear less ?
In the north of England, we'd refer to le patronat as "them" (as opposed to "us").
moondust.
Posted by: | 20 December 2006 at 07:44
Hi Sedulia,
It was a few days I havn't visited Rue rude and I see a quote from me whohoo.. ;-)
I hope that my text is not filled with a lot of language mistakes.
I am sometimes sad that we see the world in two separate class here (at least I talk for myself).
I would add something :
In a previous job, I was working with a colleague that was from the "other side".
We were good working friends, then he started to explain all what he was owning: a collection car,a wine cave, an APPARTMENT !
I was wondering how he could own an appartment at 25 years old with only one year of work behind him.
He has explained me that he has calculated that it was possible with his salary and instead to rent an apartment, for almost the same monthly money or less he could have is own. So it seem that it is a matter of courage to take the credit for 20 years or more.
That is partially wrong because when you take a credit, the bank wouldn't lend you some money if you cannot that you will be able to give it back and even assuming that you can loose your job. It is always usefull when the bank ask you something for mortgage and that dad say that he is the boss of a home cooler company and that if the son fails to pay his monthly due, he will pay for him.
How could you do when you start from nothing ? When you don't have anyone to cover your financial issues ? Here, there is no way and that create a class system.
Merry Chritmas :-)
Flip.
Posted by: Flip | 22 December 2006 at 00:22