Old 03-05-01, 02:40 PM
  #16  
Jean-Paul Rivegauche, PhD
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Cambronne: Your adoption of this name is tres amusant!

I wonder how many in this forum are aware of the significance of the use of the name "Cambronne". For those who are not, Napoleon's General Cambronne answered the British demand for surrender at Waterloo with the inspiring epithet "MERDE!", thus immortalising both the word and the good General for posterity.

America has a milder analogue in General McAuliff's response to the German commander in the 'Battle of the Bulge', during the Second World War, when the latter demanded the American surrender in view of the fact that McAuliff's forces were completely surrounded (with little hope of escape). General McAuliff's response was a somewhat less scatalogical "Nuts", but considering that many WASP Americans are descendents of the ultra-conservative Puritans, this choice of idiom is understandable.

[I myself prefer General Cambronne's pithy remark, although if it had been myself, I would have probably replied: "Fous-moi le camp!" This is also useful on a bicycle ride in France, by the way].

At any rate, Cambronne, thanks for some excellent and droll inference by innuendo. Il n'y a que le premier pas qui coute, je pense....
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