closeness of the community relied on its closedness, fostering a sort of micro-xenophobia, the threat less actual foreigners than people from other states. In Advanced Placement English, our teacherâwith smudgy beauty mark and scrolled peroxide curls, rumored to be a former Playboy bunnyâjettisoned the curriculum in favor of lessons in comportment.
âWhat is an appropriate hostess gift?â she would ask.
âA candle, a picture frame, or a box of chocolate,â we chorused back.
âWith what color ink should one compose a thank-you note?â
âBlack is preferred for men, blue is preferred for women.â
Tests were a breeze. All you had to do was walk to the front of the room and demonstrate that you could correctly enunciate words like
twenty
(not âtwunnyâ) and
pen
(avoiding âpinâ).
âPop quiz!â she would cry, summoning one of us to the chalkboard like a game-show hostess waving down a contestant from the stands.
âWhat is the number after nineteen?â
âTWEN-ty.â
âWhat is the number after nine?â
âTEN.â
âWhat am I holding in my hand?â
âA PEN.â
âAll together now!â
âTEN PENS!â
 â¢Â â¢Â â¢Â
A FEW YEARS LATER, southeastern North Carolina gave rise to its own neologism. It was 2003. France had just promised to veto the United Nations Security Councilâs resolution to invade Iraq. Neal Rowland, the owner of Cubbieâs, a burger joint in Beaufortâtwo hours north of Wilmington on Highway 17âdecided to strike back. A customer had reminded him that during World War I, sauerkraut makers had euphemized their product as âliberty cabbage,â and frankfurters had been rechristened âhot dogs.â Rowland bought stickers and slapped them on top of such menu items as fries and dressing, scrawling in âfreedomâ wherever it had once read âFrench.â âAt first, they thought I was crazy,â he told CNN, of the employees of the restaurantâs eleven branches across the state, as the stunt took off. âAnd then now, they think itâs a great idea, and all the stores have started to changeâWilmington, Greenville, Kinston, all over.â
In Washington, a North Carolina congressman urged his colleagues to join the âfreedom friesâ movement. Soon, the word
French
was purged from congressional dining rooms. The French issued an eye-rolling reply: âWe are at a very serious moment dealing with very serious issues, and we are not focusing on the name you give to potatoes.â They noted that
frites
were Belgian. Nonetheless, the trend caught on. The makers of Frenchâs mustard were forced to issue a press release: âThe only thing French about Frenchâs mustard is the name.â Aboard Air Force One, President George W. Bushâs chefs served âstuffed Freedom toast,â with strawberries and powdered sugar.
The next year, in the 2004 presidential election, Rush Limbaugh mocked John Kerry as Jean F. Chéri, a lover of Evian and brie. Tom DeLay, a wit of the era, began his fund-raising speeches with the line, âGood afternoon, or, as John Kerry might say, âBonjour.ââ In 2012, when Mitt Romneyâwho had spent two years as a missionary in Bordeauxâran for president, the trope that foreign languages, especially French, were unpatriotic remained in evidence. An ad entitled âThe French Connectionâ was set to accordion music. It warned, of Romney, âAnd just like John Kerryâhe speaks French.â The gotcha shot was a clip of Romney saying âJe mâappelle Mitt Romneyâ in a promotional video for the Salt Lake City Olympics.
Foreign languages were not always taboo in America. The word
English
appears nowhere in the Constitution, whose framers declined to establish an official language. Many of them were multilingual.
Louise Penny
Amy Malone
Dean Murray
Katharine Davis
Roderick Gordon
Mary Hanson
Jennifer Collins Johnson
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Terra Wolf, Mercy May