The birth of Toshi's French-language blog

This comes from an idea that had been hanging on the back of my mind for quite a time. I firstly thought of making a French-language post every once a week, but that would betray my pure ideals of having nearly 100% of my posts in English.

Moreover, writing in French could potentially discourage some of you my loyal readers from reading or subscribing to this main blog any further, since a non-English post would be unfamiliar to the general audience in Peru or Philippines.

So the solution...voilà! A brand new French-language blog was created.

Now the blog title per se has quite of a story to it.

When the consideration of title first came to mind, I was determined that the initials has to be SS. Not the SS that stands for Schutzstaffel of Nazi, but something that can really stick to people's minds.

In other words, they have to be catchy!

Because to be honest with you, using Foreign Prophecies as the title of this blog has been one of the greatest regrets in my life. I cannot change it, because that requires a huge task of asking numerous people to change my link in their blogrolls, especially those that are already fixed (such as the ones where I translated President Obama's biography).

It is not catchy at all, and to non-native speakers of English, oftentimes I have to spell the "P-R-O-P-H-E-C-I-E-S" and still get a blank stare.... What the hell does Prophecies mean?, they ask me.

Hence learning from my experience, I decided that my French blog has to be catchy in people's ears. And for that, I went to great lengths into opening a humongous Oxford dictionary of French in the library, and scouring for every single adjective and a noun that begins in S that can match when paired.

A sign of OCD? Indeed.

I took notes of some of them which are quite descriptive, poetic, or simply have a nice ring to them, such as sabre (sword), sonate (sonata), satisfaisant (satisfactory), saisonnier (seasonal), or stance (stanza).

My first pick was Serein Soleil (Serene Sunlight). It was not until later on that I remembered that I was supposed to put the noun in front as Soleil Serein instead.

And what on earth does Serene Sunlight mean anyway? It has a highly poetic touch to it, but does not really mean anything...it only shows how stupid the blog author is.

So I looked for another.

I decided that my second pick has to be musical-themed. Second Sonata would be nice, but too bad it's in English. In French, it turns into Deuxième Sonate, which is not a very good idea because:

1. Its initial is not SS
2. The French word Sonate would rhyme with the Indonesian word SUNAT (circumcise)

Thus, it's another No.

For my third pick (which I hoped was the last one), I decided that the SS had to represent me or my writings in some way.

Then I stumbled upon the word Scorpion. And hey, I'm a Scorpio!

So be it, I fixed my noun on Scorpio.

What would be the adjective then? Sain is a good adjective, but it's weak. Healthy Scorpio doesn't really mean anything.

Scorpion Saisonnier is highly poetical at first ring, but if you ponder the meaning...it sounds as if I'm a piece of durian. Seasonal Scorpio? Come on Toshi, you can find a better one.

What about Scorpion Subtil (Subtle Scorpio)? This almost become my final pick for the title, before I decided that it's kinda hard to pronounce.

Scorpion Suave (Suave Scorpio) also came into consideration, but it was too self-laudatory and would scare away the audience who may think that its content is nothing but narcissistic remarks on the author himself.

Then I came across Sceptique. Hyaw!

That pretty much describes me. I'm the type of person who can give my trust to anybody, but sometimes I verify with outside sources...just in case.

You can be my buddy, my mother, or even my wife, but if I feel that something is amiss or out-of-place, I would do everything to tear your walls down and verify your words with a third party, even if I have to seduce your own confidant into becoming my personal detective or hack into your school ID account (I've done both of them several times in my life and I'm not kidding you, hahaha).

I trust, but I verify.

So Scorpion Sceptique it is.

And what a pretty coincidence, both have Sc in front of them!



~post'script Just thank God it's not Scorpion Scatologique.