Gars or Garce?

I posted previously about a silly show on TV that Dave and I enjoy, called “Un Gars, Une Fille” (“A Guy, A Girl”; pronounced “UN GAR, OON FEE” in French). It’s a bunch of two minute vignettes strung together that show how it’s basically impossible for men and women to get along. Everything is a bit exaggerated, but the show is really funny and everyone in France is familiar with it.

The other day Dave was telling my friend Stephanie how much he enjoys the show. He had forgotten the name, however, and was trying to describe it to her. “What’s the name of the show?” she finally asked. At that moment Dave remembered.

“OON GARCE, OON FEE”, he responded.

I saw Stephanie’s eyes light up. “Yeah that’s a funny show”, she said. “But it’s definitely not called “OON GARCE, OON FEE. A show like that might be a big hit though”. And she started to laugh.

Even though Dave knew the show is called “Un Gars, Une Fille”, he didn’t argue. One must assume the natives know more than we do. “Maybe I said it wrong”, he told me later. Indeed.

The next night Dave and I were watching a film, a French thriller called “36”, with Gerard Depardeau. Incidentally, it appears that Gerard Depardeau may in fact be in every French movie ever made. But I digress.

At one point in the film the bad guys kidnapped a policewoman from the street. She was resisting being thrown in their car, and the kidnapper roughed her up yelling, “Monte la voiture, garce!” (“Get in the car, garce”). He threw her in and they screeched away. Fortunately she survived and it all turned out ok in the end.

But all of a sudden it hit me. Dave had meant to tell Stephanie the show was called “A Guy, A Girl”. But he in fact said it wrong. Very wrong. With a small change in pronunciation he had instead said he liked the show “A B****, A Girl.

Perhaps Stephanie is right: I wonder if anyone would watch it?

****In reality the word 'garce' means more like "gold-digging hag", but does anyone ever really say that?