Wednesday, October 29, 2008

Revolutionary fact number one


I've been reading about the French Revolution and one of the fascinating things I discovered is that the political terms left and right date back to that time, to 1792 to be precise. A fringe group of radicals chose to sit together on the left side of the National Assembly and everyone else crossed the floor to sit on the right. The rest is history.

9 comments:

Dumdad said...

Not many people know that, said Michael Caine.

French Fancy... said...

I bet a lot of people do though. Maybe if I'd paid more attention at school I'd have known it too.

Interesting that the word 'gauche' has such a negative connotation when used in the English language. The word derivation dates back to the 18thC, so it must have been because of the Revolution. I love all this stuff.

Tess Kincaid said...

This is news to me! Fascinating fact.

Fred said...

One of my favorite subjects to teach!

Why won't the Black Box send me here? :-)

marc aurel said...

the black box is rigged

marc aurel said...

somewhere between a child and a teenager, I thought it was rive gauche and rive droite.

Carol said...

Absolutely fascinating...Oooohhh I do love learning new interesting things!!

C x

Blu said...

Facinating facts, will see if I have room in my head for that one 1792. Maybe if I have a tidy up I can squeeze it in.

French Fancy... said...

willow - so that's at least two of us that didn't know it then :)


fred - you made it! Hope your students are more attentive that I used to be at school. That's why I'm studying now.


marc - how is it rigged? Do tell.


carol - so glad people didn't know it. As I drafted it I thought ' what if I'm the only person who didn't know this?'


Blu - better make some space as there will be more facts coming any day now.


memo to self - stop messing about on here and get on with your essay.