Hmm. Equally calmly -- we are, after all, discussing this in front of the children -- I finish chewing my bite. We have been married over twelve years and, like any married couple, we've had our ups and downs, but I certainly didn't think it had come to this. It seems rather coldly systematic -- you might even say sangfroid -- of him: Is he doing this because this is what is expected of a man in France? Has he been collecting resumés? Is previous experience necessary? What, exactly, are these women putting as their mission statements?
The phrase echos in the room, and by the time I put down my fork, Anthony realizes what he has said. "I mean, I've been interviewing for a French maîtresse," he laughs. Maîtresse, of course, means teacher. Ah yes, Anthony is going to get some French language lessons as part of his Ubisoft affaires. Affaires, of course, meaning business. Très bien. Now that we are all clear about my husband's unblemished fidelity record, it's time to discuss faux amis, which literally means "false friends." These are not the women who become your husband's secret mistress but are nice to your face, though certainly they would also qualify as false friends. Rather, a faux ami is a grammatical term for a word that seems like it would mean the same thing in two languages but doesn't. And oh, how it doesn't.
Here is an example of a faux ami:
No, this is not where you get tampons and gifts (cadeaux). Nor is it where you go to buy tampons as gifts. Rather, it is a little stationery store in Normandy where you might go to buy stamps (tampons) and gifts (cadeaux). Got it?
French and English share enough vocabulary that my back-up plan is always this: If I don't know the French word, I just say the English word with a French accent. It works wonderfully quite often: libéral, synthétique, qualité, indépendance, commisération.
But then you mention a costume d'Halloween, and it leads to a very confusing five minute discussion until you establish that "costume" is the word for business suit (and wearing one would, indeed, feel very much like dressing up in a costume at this point in Anthony's every-day-is-casual-Friday techie career). "Déguisement" is what they use to refer to something a child would use to play dress-up/pretend.
A recent online headline asks about a French Top Chef contestant, "Ruben, est-il toujours en lice?" I know that "lice" is "poux," but it still looks to me like they are asking if Ruben is "in lice." When I look it up, my eye immediately catches the third definition for the French word "lice," which is "hound-bitch." Excellent! But the phrase "en lice" really means "on the list" or, more colloquially, "in the running."
The word "râpé" means "grated" (as in grated carrots) and "grosse" means "big." And here's a poster for the new movie, "La Taupe," which is not about a paint color but rather "The Mole."
Let us not forget the ubiquitious librairies, which are not libraries at all, but rather book stores, as opposed to bibliothèques, which are what we call libraries. I recently conducted a Princeton interview for a girl who is arguably one of the top high school students in all of France (valedictorian at the most famous, selective, competitive high school) and whose English was so incredible, she used the word "polemic" in regular conversation and had the perspicacity to use the word "perspicacity" correctly. Yet even she got confused when she wanted to talk about a library in English.
When my sister was in a museum here as an exchange student in high school, she once asked to see the exhibition, not realizing that an exhibition is an "exposition" in French, and that the French word "exhibition" is used in the sense English-speakers would say "exhibitionist...."
My own worst experience with a faux ami was when I was here in college as an exchange camp counselor. I was talking with a Frenchman who was very curious about American bread. So I explained that we generally bought bread at the supermarket (gasp!), and that it came pre-cut in plastic bags (quel horreur!), and that is was usually made with préservatifs. At which point he laughed uproariously and said, "Donc, tu mange le pain et poof! pas de bébés." "So, you eat the bread and poof! no babies." After a few frantic minutes looking in my dictionary, I learned that "préservatifs" are condoms. Preservatives, on the other hand, are "agents conservateurs." That would be conserving agents, not conservative agents.
By the way: on the vending machine above, the words below the blue triangle are near faux amis and do not mean "tire" and "relax" (both of which would be fine pieces of advice at the point of condom sales) but rather "pull" and "release" (both of which would also be fine pieces of advice at the point of condom sales but in this case refer to how you get the condoms out of the machine).
Then there is the word "fèces" which is a rare double faux ami. That is to say, it is a faux ami in written form: The girls are often told to sit on their fèces, and even that they have adorable fèces, since fèces means "bottom" or "tush." It is such an acceptable term that teachers regularly use it in class. It is also a faux ami in spoken form, however, since it is pronounced "fess" -- which is just how French people pronounce our word "face" when they are trying to say it in English. Je vais me laver le fess dans la douche is a double whammy in a conversation with French-and-English speakers in that it means "I am going to wash my butt-or-face-we're-not-sure-which-language-we're-using in the shower (which is douche)."
Besides talking about their fèces, the girls' teachers have also called them rètardaires a couple times, rètardaires meaning "people who are late." So many words, so many ways to get in trouble.
In closing, I just want to let you know that Anthony has, indeed, selected his French maîtresse. Her name is Caroline, and he tells me she is very, very good...
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