Mon Dieu! C’est bon Franglais. Oh, really?

If Britain and the US are divided by a common language, the ‘Sceptered Isle’ and France have long been engaged in a verbal duel. The Duke of Wellington’s victory over Napoleon’s Grande Armée on a rain-sodden battlefield in Belgium became a double victory for the English who commandeered the word ‘Waterloo’ to denote someone’s comeuppance, and the phrase ‘Pardon my French’ is the anglophone apology for having used impolite language. While tipping a grudging nod to the superiority of Gallic gastronomy over the Anglo-Saxon, Gilbert and Sullivan confessed to a “sentimental passion” for a “not too French French bean”. In tit-for-tat response, the Académie française has zealously guarded its lingual legacy from the cross-Channel incursions of ‘franglais’, such as ‘le bifstek’, ‘le weekend’ and ‘le piknik’.

Now, however, the French — dismissed by Shaw’s Henry Higgins as a people who “don’t care what they say, as long as they pronounce it right” — are contemplating the inclusion of the word ‘brexit’, with a small ‘b’, in their officially approved vocabulary to signify “a cacophonous and insoluble debate or a shambolic meeting”. The definition, which was retweeted 2,700 times within six hours, might ensure that even in the event of a no-deal Brexit, ‘brexit’ might be a done deal for those who parlez vous Français.