This reminds me of when I was wondering about all the words for this stuff in Japanese, given the terms they have for kendo. Turns out they just use (Japanese-style) French. Pretty boring. =)

Another option to consider – that the ability of the director to cue the beginning of the bout has less to do with the words he’s saying than with the rhythm of the ritual. Granted, it’s been a good four years since I fenced, but I was a little suprised as I was reading your account to note that I didn’t remember the repetition of “ready” in English after “en garde.” As I played through the opening of a bout in my head, though, I definitely remembered that there were three distinctly-paced things that the director said, and I remembered what the appropriate response was to each of them. So I figure that, were I back on the strip, it wouldn’t matter much whether the director was speaking English of French; I’d still await the third word.

That said, it remains true that international fencing, professional (and Olympic amateur) fencers, and the French language are, in fact, all odd. But that we knew already. ;c)

And no, he didn’t, I think (as I alluded to when I wrote “but what if you didn’t know some facts about this”). OR, he did know but thought that French for ‘ready’ sounded like “ready” does in English. NM, it’s pretty clear he didn’t know.

… semifinal match from the 2000 Sydney Olympics [...] As any fencer knows, if you’re consistently getting off-target hits, your technique could use a once-over. So these people are obviously quite skilled.

In other news, Olympic sprinters described as “really fast” by onlookers–I do hope that skill is the norm at the Olympics, in general :-) And did your fellow club member know that international fencing is conducted through French?