Ian
Montreal
Montreal
@Jeremy You would be correct, if « amie »didn’t start with a vowel. There needs to be a liaison between an article and a noun that starts with a vowel, which is why we say « mon amie » even if « amie » is feminine. Even more confusingly, “beautiful” in French is « beau » (masculine) or « belle » (feminine). So a beautiful female friend would be « ma belle amie ». But a beautiful male friend cannot be « mon beau ami » because « beau » ends with a vowel. So we say « mon bel ami » ! And don’t get me started on what we do if there’s more than one friend !!
I’ve been playing for about a year now, thanks to my wonderful American in-laws who generously gift me a yearly NYT subscription. I thought I finally had the main American terms down pat, only to be humbled by today’s puzzle. I’ve never seen a TCYB before (though I just learnt there is indeed one in my city) and thought maybe Fannie and Freddie were the names of realtors in a movie or TV show! Went down a bit of a rabbit hole learning about GSEs as we don’t have a real equivalent here in Canada. Fascinating stuff (for this Canuck!)
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