Lp and La

I was in a Japanese bookstore today, and saw Lonely Planet guides in Japanese. At first I didn't notice them because I was looking for a Chicago guide, and was only thinking, "I don't need one on Italy." But then I did a double-take: a guide on Italy, in Japanese, from LP? Never saw that before.

And yesterday when I was at the Art Institute, I attended a gallery talk about American sculpture. There was one sculpture called "America" and the lecturer said that it is in the form of a woman because abstract concepts are expressed with the feminine definite article in French, as in "la liberte" (sorry, I have no access to accents, so I can't place one over that final "e"). I took French so long ago, and didn't get very far, so I never learned that. I guess you never know where your next language lesson is going to pop up.