George,

That's cool that C-ville is looking for a jumelage [partnership] with Besançon. It's one of the greatest and most beautiful cities in all of France, in my opinion, especially in winter when it's covered with snow.

I probably should mention something about the spelling of Besançon - and I hope I don't seem too pedantic or dweeby in saying this, but people – almost uniquely foreigners – who spell the city's name using "c" instead of "ç" - with the cedilla - are made fun of. I was made fun of once for spelling it incorrectly, and even worse, pronouncing it incorrectly, and you'll see why after I explain.

When translating foreign words containing diacritics into English, which has no diacritics, Anglophones normally leave them out in writing, such as “Jan Jose” instead of “San José” or “facade” instead of “façade”. This is not a problem in English since English phonetics is often very illogical anyway, so such anomalies in pronunciation fit right in, and most Anglophones without knowledge of a foreign language don’t even know what the heck diacritics are and could care less about them. (I remember David Leary once deriding the acute accent over the “é” in “café” as, “the faggotty little thing over the ‘e’”in one of his routines.)

However, in French, as in many foreign languages, diacritics are very important. Misplaced or absent diacritics can affect pronunciation and even meaning of a word. Normally a “c” in French, just like in English, has a hard pronunciation except when followed by “e” or “i”. Adding the cedilla to the “c” softens it, so in the case of Besançon, the city’s name should be pronounced bez-un-son – more or less. Spelling the city's name "Besancon", without the cedilla, hardens the “c”, thus making it pronounced bez-un-kon, which sounds way too similar phonetically to the phrase “Baise un con”, which means “Fuck a cunt” or “Fuck an imbecile”, depending on the context.

I was told « Ce sont seulement des cons qui l’épellent ‘baise un con’ », meaning “It’s only imbeciles who spell it ‘fuck an imbecile.’”

The moral of the story is, I guess, il ne faut pas être con (you musn't be an imbecile).

Joseph Cheek (electronic mail, April 30, 2004)