At the risk of stating some obvious things: the claim that most educated persons would know these phrases does not imply that all educated persons must know the

At the risk of stating some obvious things: the claim that most educated persons would know these phrases does not imply that all educated persons must know these phrases. Nor does it imply that someone isn't educated if they don't. I'm aware that I said that said I would expect educated people to know joie de vivre and, in fact, I do. I find it somewhat surprising that you claim to have never heard it before, but hey, I believe you. It doesn't change my expectation, though, which is formed by many years of saying it and having the people around me understand what I said. In many US states, including Southern ones, and abroad as well. But no, they aren't "up north" regionalisms at all, and their existence in the language has nothing to do with American elementary schools having French classes or not. They're known throughout the Commonwealth, for instance. These are just undigested bits of French which live in the language, like a priori is to Latin.