8 facts about the French

they didn't invent playing cards

 

Well they did bring you the cards you know today. China probably had the first playing cards but it is the French who are famous for the cards we know today

Did you know that at one time, the king of hearts represented Charlemagne, the king of Diamonds was Julius Caesar, the king of clubs was Alexander the Great and the king of spades was King David from the Bible? These fascinating identities, along with special designations for the other court cards, were bestowed by the French who were instrumental in bringing the pleasures of card play to people in Europe and the New World.

The earliest playing cards are believed to have originated in Central Asia. The documented history of card playing began in the 10th century, when the Chinese began using paper dominoes by shuffling and dealing them in new games. Four-suited decks with court cards evolved in the Moslem world and were imported by Europeans before 1370. In those days, cards were hand-painted and only the very wealthy could afford them, but with the invention of woodcuts in the 14th century, Europeans began mass-production

It is from French designs that the cards we use today are derived.

France gave us the suits of spades, clubs, diamonds and hearts, and the use of simple shapes and flat colors helped facilitate manufacture. French cards soon flooded the market and were exported in all directions. They became the standard in England first, and then in the British Colonies of America.

Americans began making their own cards around 1800. Yankee ingenuity soon invented or adopted practical refinements: double-headed court cards (to avoid the nuisance of turning the figure upright), varnished surfaces (for durability and smoothness in shuffling), indexes (the identifying marks placed in the cards’ borders or corners), and rounded corners (which avoid the wear that card players inflict on square corners).

So, there you av it. I wave my onions in yor face. Viva la France!

 

haha!

 

lol thats pretty fuckin funny

Peace and Love,
Dan

 

To all the French who get offended at this post:
I am offended by you. You offend the rest of the world as well.
French jokes are funny. People will laugh. Get over it.

 

Wine and cheese the only two good things to come out of France !

The world has many problems,
The French have only two,
every thing they say,
and everything they do .

I'm with you Mr B ... find humour where ever you can ....

 

I'll tell you this, I am an American. I went to France three weeks ago with all of the sterotypes lingering in the back of my mind. That the French hate Americans, that they are snobs/rude, etc. Based on my experience, all of those sterotypes were totally false. Every person I met was incredibly friendly and hospitable. It was one of the most pleasant trips I have ever been on!

The only sterotypes that generally held true was that of the loud, rude, and arrogant Americans .

 

Oh !!! So true ....

 

That's Miss B. I don't know about French people in France, but where I live many French workers come here to find jobs, and they are really nasty to the local populace.
Stereotypes always come from somewhere
THEY ARE HILARIOUS!

 

That's just weird to me. I know their must be some French people that are rude, but in my experience they are such nice, well-rounded, good people. I had French friends in the States that I met in college who were sooooo nice. It just doesn't fit my experience, thats all.

But again, I've been in Germany now for 8 mo. I have been consitantly SHOCKED by the behavior of my American brethren. It has gotten to the point where some bars won't let you in because you are American, they cause that many problems.

I haven't been in a fight in over 15 years. At Oktoberfest, I was punched twice in the face by a drunk American--for no reason at all, I was just walking out of a beer tent!!! Bars have stopped serving my favorite drink--Irish Car Bombs--because of how out of control Americans, usually US soldiers, behave. I could give literally hundreds of examples of this type of thing, and yet still the overwhelming majority of people here still treat us with the RESPECT WE GIVE THEM.

 

Ooops sorry about that ! as to what the French are like in France, some of them are rude, arrogant, unhelpful, as for the rest ? i can't say, because i didn't meet them all !!!!! LOL ??????

 

Intresting, probaly unrelated story:
I was reading a travel magazine not too long ago that spoke of a German man who had gone to France for a visit to comment on what France is like. (It was a travel magazine, after all.)
He ordered a sandwich from a French cafe, speaking perfect English without an accent. (It is possible) He recieved the most terrible of service, his sandwich arriving 40 minutes later with a sneer.
He went back to the same cafe a few months later and ordered his sandwich in German, and he had the same waiter, who returned promptly with his meal and a smile.
The writer commented, "Perhaps he was afraid of the dreaded Nazi bootheel returning."
LOL I was amused. The French did roll over and cry when the country was invaded.

 

I can't stand it when simple minded Americans (and i am one of the them) say shit like that, without any real understanding of what actually happened.

Check this out, although the French did fight valiantly, they were caught completely off guard, their intellegence estimates about the size/number of German divisions was way off, and they were expecting a different type of war than Blitzkrieg strikes. Moreover, the French weren't the only ones to give up and retreat. The British Armies also retreated--TWICE--once from Belgium, and once after a failed counter offensive. The German occupation was so well organized, that the Allies didn't try again until June 6, 1944!!!

The French resistance was also very commendable. They fought under the very real fear of death, not only for themselves, but for their family and friends as well. Next to Tito and Milosevic in Yugoslavia, they were the only real resistance force.

I think it is ridiculous for Americans to shame the French for their valour, when the US was buffered by two giant oceans from attack, and had a difficult enough time envading the continent as it was. If anyone, it's the Russians who should claim the victory for war in the west.

Now, about the waiter. If the german guy had tried to speak a lick of French, just to be courteous, perhaps? Imagine if a French guy came over to the States, spoke no English, and just expected that you would know French. You might be offended as well. Just a thought.

 

Now hold on .... I am a Greek, I live in Greece, yet I speak German and English fluently, my French is pass able,my Italian laughable..... yet when I'm in Italy my English helps me out, when I'm in any country where I don't speak the local language, English is normally the ice breaker, except in France, where I'm constantly told I should at least attempt to speak French out of
courteousy? That's what I attempted on the first few trips to the country, then it became apparent that French people visiting Greece, Germany or Italy, felt that by speaking heavily accented English was enough to warrant not bothering to try speaking local tongues.... Now the English and Americans are just as bad, when it comes to learning new languages, but the difference is they already speak a language that is pretty much universally under stood ! ( You do know why the French smell don't you ? So the blind have a reason to hate them as well !!!) LOL
( do you know the difference between France and a plate of cheese ? If you leave a plate of cheese long enough a culture will develop !!) L even louder OL....... sorry very childish i know !!!!!!

 

your farked

 

Denim is from France. Don't know about you guys but I love jeans!

 

much simpler if you had said the french in general are just a tad weird .

 

The French in general are just a tad weird

 

the funny part is the french were in much better shape than the germans ,germany was paying for the reparations bills from WW1 the french were not, the french had many colonies in africa ,germany did not, the french were in a better position to have a top notch army and dont tell me the french were blind many french and german speakin french travel back and forth from germany to france they had to seen the german build up, or hear the german radio station and the propaganda going on by the nazi not even the russian had this much information ,if i was a french man "a german speaking french lots of those" and while in germany saw what was going on i would had run to the french ministri and told them to sound the general alarm . im sure the french also keept spys in germany quite easy to do in the 1930s and 40s. how the french were cought with theyr pants down is behond me. this is like saying we in florida have no idea what goes on in georgia even tho thousands of either residents go thru each other state every day.