“The place by the thing…” is a line from the film “Broadcast News”, written by James L. Brooks. I love the line because it makes no sense, it cannot possibly be understood by the person it’s being said to, but of course it does and of course it is. Because it’s a line of dialogue between friends, it is a line performing a plot point and conveying the particular friendship at the same time.

It’s not something that often comes up, but when it does, I do find myself saying it. I’d say now that it’s part of my idiolect, my very pattern of speaking, but I’d only say that under the same kind of situation where you’re talking with a friend. So clearly I can say it to you and you’ll get it. I’m not claiming you won’t think I’m peculiar for having this line stuck in my head, but I’m definitely saying that you’re wondering how in the world I believe this is one of those few times when the line is relevant.

Yet I think it most definitely is. Follow. I just spent a few days in Paris and stayed at the hotel where my wife and I went on our honeymoon, quite some time ago. Months ago, even. In the time since that honeymoon, I have brought us back before but I think the hotel has changed its name and I know that the sole reason I was able to track it down again this month was because of this place by the thing where we went that time.

Specifically, this place called Poggenpohl. It’s a store, if you don’t happen to know it any better than I do, it does some kind of high-end kitchen stuff, I don’t know. Never bought anything there. Never been inside any Poggenpohl shop. I just like the name and it is exclusively because there is a Poggenpohl shop opposite the hotel that I was able to find where I wanted to go. I used Google’s Street View and Apple’s Look Around to go through the area until I found Poggenpohl and then, because I recognised that when I didn’t recognise a single actual street sign, I swung the view around, and there was our hotel.

Truly, I am fond of this Poggenpohl, which is what made it rather hard when I found out during this trip that it’s gone. It’s still there on Street View, I stood opposite where it used to be and could still see it on both Google and Apple. But the shop has changed hands and it’s now, I don’t know, something else. The last vestige of the Poggenpohl by the place where we stayed that time, is in Google Maps and you know it’s going to go away soon. Replaced by an updated Street View. A tragedy.

I am keeping that shot of the Poggenpohl from Street View, you can’t take it away from me. Also, admittedly, I’m writing down the bloody address of the hotel for future and more sensible reference.

But if this all suggests that I have become more sensible since my honeymoon, there is only so far down that line you can go. Because I told you that the “Broadcast News” line is in my idiolect. You seemed to accept that, so I feel I can now admit that It’s suddenly been joined by something else that came up during this Paris trip.

I don’t believe I’ve ever seen this happen to me before, actually witnessing something entering my language. I mean, I can recognise where I must have picked up phrases I say a lot, such as “not so much”, or “we need a rudimentary pulley system”, and very definitely where I picked up a particular way of saying “Well.”. (“Mad About You”, “Doctor Who” and “Police Squad!”, if you’re wondering.) Also I recently saw an interview with a woman who said she had been “transitioning my marriage into a friendship” and I swear that’s going to stick with me as I roll its loaded history around my mind.

But it hasn’t stuck with me yet.

And instead, I learned on this Paris trip that I have picked up the word “Ah”. It’s another one where it’s the delivery that does it, as much as the specific word itself. I have unconsciously absorbed the word “ah” because it’s what the lead character keeps saying in “Astrid & Raphael”, aka “Astrid: Murder in Paris.”

There is no reason for this. Don’t go pointing at that word “Paris” and making a connection with the fact I was in Paris. It appears to have entered me fully and quickly, it has annoyed me hugely at how often I’ve just said it — it definitely comes up a lot more often than “Sandy Glasser owns a cheese shop” which I’ve been known to mutter — but I think it was getting in my head before I went away.

Yet if I am seemingly programmable, there is also something special about a one-word phrase written in a language I don’t speak, about it becoming part of me. Just as it feels as much precious as it does silly that “the place by the thing where we went that time” has been mine since some time in the 1980s.

Imagine writing something that a total stranger unconsciously adopts into their very way of speaking. It’s marvellous.