This was sent to me by Tim Penner in Canada.
“Canada’s Prime Minister in the late 50’s and early 60’s was John Diefenbaker, notorious in the French-speaking province of Quebec for his horrible French pronunciation, (he couldn’t speak French, he just read it out loud.)
One day, he was expressing his appreciation for having been invited to attend a ceremony in Quebec. He mispronounced the word “appreciate” in French. In English, we say “appree-shee-ate” but in French they say “appréciez – pronounced appray-see-aye”. Unfortunately he said “appray-shee-aye”, which means “after having shit”. So, what his French audience heard was, “After having shit, I’m pleased to be here.”