I may mutter about the French as a nation, but individually they're charming. We have a succesion of (usually young) French folks passing through the house (my wife is a great internationalist). A year ago Maryline (a Parisienne) stayed for about 3 months, working at a local firm to improve her English. One evening she told us that all her colleagues had fallen about laughing when she asked for "some shits of paper".

"And then," she continued, "they laughed even more when I changed it to pisses of paper!"