You know, official French is really two languages — the spoken version with particular grammar rules and usage, plus the literary language, with special grammar that includes a verb tense never used in the spoken language.

But it's not just grammar that differentiates the two languages.

A French real estate investor once hired me to translate a booklet of marketing material into English for an American audience. Mostly what I had to do was unwrite the lovely, flowery, and very formal metaphors he used.

He speaks English fairly well, and after reading through my translation, he looked hurt. "You stripped away my beautiful language," he said.

"I had to. An American investor market would never understand why a business proposal sounds like a poetic passage out of Victor Hugo. We don't write like that anymore, and your message will get lost in the disconnect."

And that's the thing! French novelists today STILL write like Hugo. French never had a Hemingway or anyone else to popularize simple, spare writing. Don't get me wrong, I like the style of writing Hemingway ushered in and that beautiful writers like John Irving and Steven King use and teach.

I guess my point is that Hugo's writing was so beloved and influential that he's still the standard French writers aspire to — florid, formal, and filled with gorgeous metaphor.

How's that for staying alive for centuries in hearts and minds? Even among businessmen!