Tuesday, August 10, 2010

"Répondez s'il vous plaît"

In the United States, we love French fries (in France, are they just fries?). We love French toast, which is not necessarily made from French bread. And we like French pastries.

It would seem that the French know quite a bit about cooking and baking.

There have been great French artists, French composers, and of course, the Father of Modern Magic--Frenchman Jean Eugene Robert-Houdin.

The Statue of Liberty was a gift from France.

It would seem that many of the things that we have received from the French, we often take for granted. "Respondez s'il vous plait" is a French statement that also seems to go unnoticed.

You are more likely to see it as RSVP. The English translation is "Please respond."

The reason that I write about this today is that it seems that few people really understand just what RSVP means and what the associated etiquette is.

It's probably just a case of ignorance--not knowing the proper RSVP etiquette. So consider this as a public service post to educate every reader on the importance of RSVP etiquette.

John

ps--no response is necessary

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hmmm. Wedding issues?

- Mike H.

John A Hill said...

Not really...just noticed that our society places less emphasis on things that were once common knowledge.