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I think that one factor is that for the British, historically, an educated person would have some grasp of basic French (and/or Latin, but France was the nearest neighbor). Hence a certain snobbery - an 'educated' person could use French to confuse or show their "class".
This is purely a theory of mine... I'm not British and have no strong grasp of history.
But yeah... my theory is that... this attitude has rubbed off on other English speaking nations.
It's probably helped by the number of French words have been incorporated into English. These allow the snob to pompously use French pronunciation in an English conversation ("cafe", "latte", etc) .... a way of gently showing their knowlege, if not of the language, of a few of it's words.
BTW, I hope this is not taken the wrong way - as an affront to true French speakers. Some people have geniune ability with the language. And... the French have contribed to scientific, philosophy, art, culture in many ways. For sure, they make good films. Heck, their up to their fifth republic already aren't they?
Haha. Sadly I think that if I were to learn French, it'd not be to read philosophy or literature in its original language - it'd be simply so I could blow away (as in humiliate , insult and outdo) the next snot nosed wanker that intoned latte or cafe (or moi) in my presence.
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