A friend recently wrote on Facebook that she has been learning French, including phrases she’ll never use. It made me recall the first sentence I learned in my high school French class: “J’entre dans la salle de classe.” (I am entering the classroom.) I thought it perfectly ridiculous: People, I insisted, don’t say what they’re doing while they’re doing it. My teacher, whom I never thought of as a visionary, had clearly anticipated the invention of the cellphone.
