I was going to pop this on to the end of the bordel that emerged from the discussion on winter fuel payments - but the thread has been closed. A friendly suggestion to Mr Thackwray, if he publishes his promised article titled "Taking the piss out of British ex-pats in France". It would be worth taking the rogue hyphen out of expat, which is an abbreviation of expatriate (one word). Some time ago, an overenthusiastic newspaper sub-editor famously took his style book's preference for "former" over "ex-" and changed ex-pat to "former patriot". Hardly the same thing.
I have a better friendly suggestion for Thackwray - not bother to write anything at all. In these days when just anyone can publish it's just as obvious that lots shouldn't. A good untrained amateur can be entertaining and informative but never like a professional, until they understand the training (Catherines' stuff is a great example of "proper" writing). Bad amateur writing, like Thackwray's blog, makes one embarrassed to have English as a first language. I must work harder at my French ;-)
I'm just pleased that I could read 'peut-etre' - interpret it and pronounce it, without reaching for Google translate - and, to the best of my knowledge, I've never seen the word in written format before. Or, perhaps I have!
Perhaps we can write it phonetically? I am always noticing how many people say it so that it sounds like 'spat'. I have often been tempted to ask them what the present tense is ;-)