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[iiipopes]

I'm with bloke. I have the required terminal degree in my field, and I have to explain complex issues to clients. If the author is that scholarly, then he should be able to write with clarity and precision so it can be understood by any person reading it. Yes, Strunk & White are my heros for English composition.

[iiipopes]

Factoid - she's supposed to have said `qu'ils mangent brioche', which was still not a very smart thing to say, but makes more sense - brioche is translated as cake, but it's really more like a soft bread.

...made with eggs & butter, so it was considered provençal, in this connotation, farm food: not fancy, but it will feed you.

This is compounded by the fact that provençal had its own dialect, and other socioeconomic differences, so the entire area was looked down on by the Parisians as lower class.

In other words, keeping in mind the contrast between the social strata, it was more a statement of maintaining the status quo of the respective lifestyles: let the royalty have their fancy foods including fine cuts of meat, and the concerns of royalty; and let the peasants eat peasant food, fending for themselves in the field, or on the farm, or in the alley markets, or simply go to the country and away from Paris, as, from her perspective, they were used to doing anyway.

[Donn]

In other words, keeping in mind the contrast between the social strata, it was more a statement of maintaining the status quo of the respective lifestyles

Not that we actually know anyone really ever said `Qu'ils mangent de la brioche' (sorry, my French gets better when I look it up), but the quote is apparently from Rousseau who attributed it vaguely to some `princess', and apparently he took it in more or less the same spirit as we take it today, evidence of the clueless disdain of the royal upper crust for the life and death struggles of the peasants.

Very unlikely that was Marie Antoinette, as there's enough evidence that she did know what was going on and was at least able to affect some concern over it. Went to the guillotine anyway, paying the price for generations of upper crust parasites.

[TubaRay]

Of all the discussions I have seen on TubeNet, I can't remember ONE that was any simpler than this one. For that reason, I am going to exercise some restraint, and leave it at that.

[iiipopes]

Of all the discussions I have seen on TubeNet, I can't remember ONE that was any simpler than this one. For that reason, I am going to exercise some restraint, and leave it at that.

Nah, while I'm partially laid off, I need the entertainment. Please -- tell us how you really feel! I need an excuse to make up some more as I go along.