Ségolène Royal with Cheese

A few weeks ago at the university a certain course was at full swing. Our teacher, a curiously warped British male, asked quite spontaneously if we knew who Ségolène Royal was. The way this teacher pronounced the word 'Royal' instantly made me smirk and chuckle. The teacher noticed this, and figured that since I found it so funny, I also had to know who she was. Lucky for us both, I knew exactly who she was - and thus I answered correctly.

The way this British teacher of ours pronounced the word was quite hilarious, to say the least. The pronounciation sounded alot more american, and specifically southern. The word had a curious 'wideness' to it, which in my mind should only be encountered in places like Tennessee or Arkansas. The way he pronounced the word also reminded me of the dialogue at the start of Pulp Fiction. Now, I'm referring to the scene which included Samuel L. Jackson and John Travolta driving the car while converging about hamburgers: in this dialogue it is revealed that a Quarter Pounder with Cheese in France is called a "Royale with Cheese". The teacher's pronounciation reminded of the way Samuel L. Jackson said the sentence "Royale with Cheese" while replying to Travolta's character. Whenever I think of that teacher, I instantly start replaying the scene in my head for some strange reason.

Anyway, speaking of hamburgers, and Quarter Pounders in specific: I decided to dig up some information concerning this "Royale with cheese" - product. Now, we all seem to know for some strange reason, that a Quarter Pounder with Cheese is an american product specifically served in the McDonalds hamburger joints. Naturally McDonalds is a global thing nowadays, and thus there's this one curious characteristic in their products no matter where you buy them from: they're all called pretty much the same even if translated. Now, luckily Wikipedia has an article about Quarter Pounders with Cheese. Normally one has to take information obtained from Wikipedia with a large grain of salt, but this time visual evidence in the article has indeed proved my suspicions correct: in France the product is in actuality called Quart De Livre Avec Fromage, which probably is just a literal translation of the original american name. This brings me to conclude, that Vincent (Travolta's character) was either a liar and thus had never been in France - or then the writers of the script had been a bit sloppy. This doesn't really bother me at all with Pulp Fiction, since it is a great movie, and I even do understand that the viewers would've probably missed the point of the entire dialogue if a Quart De Livre Avec Fromage hadn't been called a Royale with Cheese in this one. It just wouldn't have worked with actual names, and perhaps the real word would've been too hard to pronounce anyways.