Nuts

When U.S. General Tony McAuliffe answered "Nuts!" to the German demand that he surrender Bastogne, he stopped no,, only the Germans but the French press. Politely, the French newspapers wrestled with a suitable translation, finally came up with Vous n'etes que des vieilles noix--"You are nothing but old nuts."

But at Waterloo 130 years ago (as Victor Hugo tells it), the strange Yankeeism had been brilliantly and broadly translated by General Pierre Jacques Etienne de Cambronne, commanding the last square of Napoleon's Old Guard. To a British demand for surrender the General shouted: "Merde!"--now proudly (but euphemistically) cited by fastidious Frenchmen as le mot de Cambronne--"Cambronne's [four-letter] word."

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