Shop talk

I went to get my hair cut today. The barbershop was quite busy, so I went to the bit where people were waiting, but there was nowhere to sit. An American customer in classic preppie dress-down garb - blue buttondown, chinos, deck shoes, no socks - pointed to the other side of the shop and said: "There's additional seating over there."

"Additional seating"? That's not something that people say; it's something that appears on notices. You say "more seats" or "other chairs". People who talk about "additional seating" wear millinery on their heads and hosiery on their legs and refer to their friends and family as "personnel". But maybe not wearing socks makes you talk that way.

Newly shorn, I went to get my laptop sorted out. It's been making worrying noises, and takes an age to start up. As I was waiting for the man to do his techie magic, I browsed the bits and pieces of kit for sale, paying particular attention to sound gear. One speaker system had multilingual packaging, so I learned that the French for "subwoofer" is "le subwoofer".

Now, I may only have a mediocre O-level in French, but I've read enough Asterix to know that animal noises change identity when they cross the Channel. The French for "cock-a-doodle-doo" is "cocorico"; "oink" is always rendered as "groin". Thus, a French subwoofer is surely "un subouaouaer".

And if it isn't, it blimmin' well should be. Zut alors!