The best column ever about Thanksgving was written the year I was born by a friend of my dad's [View all]

[DFW]

His name was Art Buchwald, and he had been a correspondent in France after World War II.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/le-grande-thanksgiving/2011/11/18/gIQA2nerYN_story.html

Art probably would have been furious at the headline, "Le Grande Thanksgiving," as any word modified by "Le" would have been followed by "Grand" without the "e." His whole column assumed that the reader understood French, which was by far the number one foreign language taught in American schools in those days.

But if you DO understand any French, this version of his attempt to explain Thanksgiving to the French is one of the funniest columns to ever appear by an American journalist.

Any column in which the town of Plymouth is translated as "an American car" and the name Mile Standish is translated for the French as "Kilomètres Deboutish" deserves the status of classic that it has indeed enjoyed for almost 70 years.

Snips:
Le Jour de Merci Donnant was first started by a group of Pilgrims (Pèlerins) who fled from l’Angleterre before the McCarran Act to found a colony in the New World (le Nouveau Monde) where they could shoot Indians (les Peaux-Rouges) and eat turkey (dinde) to their hearts’ content.

They landed at a place called Plymouth (now a famous voiture Américaine ) in a wooden sailing ship called the Mayflower (or Fleur de Mai ) in 1620. But while the Pèlerins were killing the dindes, the Peaux-Rouges were killing the Pelerins, and there were several hard winters ahead for both of them. The only way the Peaux-Rouges helped the Pèlerins was when they taught them to grow corn (mais). The reason they did this was because they liked corn with their Pèlerins.
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And so, on the fourth Thursday in November, American families sit down at a large table brimming with tasty dishes and, for the only time during the year, eat better than the French do.

No one can deny that le Jour de Merci Donnant is a grande fête, and no matter how well fed American families are, they never forget to give thanks to Kilomètres Deboutish, who made this great day possible.