They have no word for entrepreneur

U.S. President George W. Bush supposedly said to UK Prime Minister Tony Blair at a G8 Summit in July 2002:

“The problem with the French is that they don’t have a word for ‘entrepreneur.’”

“Entrepreneur” is an English loan word from the French. There is no credible evidence that Bush said the line, however.

Wikiquote: George W. Bush

George Walker Bush (born 6 July 1946) is an American politician and businessman who served as the 43rd President of the United States from 2001 to 2009, and the 46th Governor of Texas from 1995 to 2000. He is the eldest son of Barbara and George H. W. Bush. He married Laura Welch in 1977 and ran unsuccessfully for the House of Representatives shortly thereafter. He was elected president in 2000 after a close and controversial election, becoming the fourth president to be elected while receiving fewer popular votes nationwide than his opponent. He is the second president to have been the son of a former president, the first having been John Quincy Adams.

(…)

Disputed

The problem with the French is that they don’t have a word for “entrepreneur.”

. Shirley Williams, Baroness Williams of Crosby, described this as a remark to Tony Blair in a discussion of the French economy during the G8 Summit, according to Jack Malvern (9 July 2002), “Bush and Blair, The Times. Alastair Campbell, Blair’s director of communications, later said that Blair never heard Bush say this and never told Baroness Williams that he said it. See Lloyd Grove (2002-07-10) “The Reliable Source,” Washington Post.

Wiktionary: entrepreneur

Etymology

Borrowing from French entrepreneur.

Noun

entrepreneur ‎(plural entrepreneurs)

1. A person who organizes and operates a business venture and assumes much of the associated risk.

2. A person who organizes a risky activity of any kind and acts substantially in the manner of a business entrepreneur.

3. A person who thrives for success and takes on risk by starting his own venture, service etc.

Google Groups: uk.gay-lesbian-bi

Brighton

Lyn David Thomas

5/19/01

On Sat, 19 May 2001 23:38:57 BST, “Richard G” wrote:

>On Sat, 19 May 2001 13:42:05 BST, “Kapitano”

>appended:

>

>> [1] If there’s a Welsh word for frenulum, I’m impressed.

>

>Is there an English word for frenulum?

LOL — one of the more amusing Redwood stories was him condemning Welsh for not having a word for Entrepreneur….

10 July 2002, Washington (DC) Post, “The Reliable Source” by Lloyd Grove, pg. C3:

According to Timesman Jack Malvern, liberal politician Shirley Williams—also known as the Baroness Williams of Crosby—recently recounted to an audience in Brighton that “my good friend Tony Blair” told her the following anecdote: “Blair, Bush and [French President] Jacques Chirac were discussing economics and, in particular, the decline of the French economy. ‘The problem with the French,’ Bush confided to Blair, ‘is that they don’t have a word for entrepreneur.’”

Yesterday Malvern told us that the damaging story—which reminded us of former vice president Dan Quayle’s more unfortunate malapropisms—came to him from “a source” who listened to the baroness’s remarks. Malvern added that he made no attempt to verify the quote with Williams. Yesterday we made the effort, but the baroness didn’t return our call to her office in the House of Lords.

However, we did receive a call from Alastair Campbell, Blair’s director of communications and strategy, who did his best to quash the story. “I can tell you that the prime minister never heard George Bush say that, and he certainly never told Shirley Williams that President Bush did say it,” Campbell told us. “If she put this in a speech, it must have been a joke.”

Twitter

E Brown

‏@vajra

“If only the French had a word for entrepreneur.”

9:00 PM — 23 Jan 2007

Twitter

Stever Robbins

‏@GetItDoneGuy

@GrammarGirl did you know the French don’t even have a word for entrepreneur ? 

3:49 PM — 25 Jun 2007

Snopes

Claim:  President George W. Bush proclaimed, “The problem with the French is that they don’t have a word for entrepreneur.”

Status:  False.

(…)

Barbara “ears of corn” Mikkelson

Last updated:  23 September 2007

Twitter

James Pearce

‏@jamespearce

@PaulWalsh : “The problem with the French, is that they don’t have a word for entrepreneur.” http://rurl.org/9np

1:26 PM — 26 Sep 2007

Twitter

Justin Guy Souter

‏@justingsouter

LOL “The thing that’s wrong with the French is that they don’t have a word for entrepreneur” — Dubya, as quoted by http://twurl.nl/lxoe1w

10:19 AM — 8 May 2008

Forbes.com

FEB 14, 2014 @ 11:10 AM

Entrepreneur: The French Do Have A Word For It

Alison Coleman , CONTRIBUTOR

There’s no firm evidence that he actually ever said it, but President George W. Bush’s reputed utterance to British Prime Minister Tony Blair that “the trouble with the French is that they don’t have a word for entrepreneur” probably echoed a widely held notion that France wasn’t a country one immediately associated with entrepreneurs.

Wrong. The country is full of them.

Posted by Barry Popik

New York City •

Work/Businesses •

Friday, April 15, 2016

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