Metalogue: Why Do Frenchmen? (1)  ↑

Daughter: Daddy, why do Frenchmen wave their arms about?
Father: What do you mean?
D: I mean when they talk. Why do they wave their arms and all that?
F: Well—why do you smile? Or why do you stamp your foot sometimes?
D: But that's not the same thing, Daddy. I don't wave my arms about like a Frenchman does. I don't believe they can stop doing it, Daddy. Can they?
F: I don't know—they might find it hard to stop. . . . Can you stop smiling?
D: But Daddy, I don't smile all the time. It's hard to stop when I feel like smiling. But I don't feel like it all the time. And then I stop.
F: That's true—but then a Frenchman doesn't wave his arms in the same way all the time. Sometimes he waves them in one way and sometimes in another—and sometimes, I think, he stops waving them.