Pardonnez moi

exp. – pardon me
My lovely friend was just here visiting from New York. She arrived on Monday and on Tuesday, proceeded out to the Louvre. She doesn’t speak much French, but knows enough to get around so as she walked up to the guard who was blocking her entry to the museum, she said politely and appropriately, “pardonnez moi.” He gave her a look and pointed to the sign that explained that the museum was closed on Tuesday, which she actually understood, but with the confusion of jet lag thought it was still Monday. So she nodded in understanding and once again said “pardonnez moi” to try to get past him. Once again, he pointed to the sign and once again she nodded in agreement and said “pardonnez moi.”

After a few rounds of this, it finally registered and she sheepishly walked away. There is nothing quite like being so assured about something only to discover you have completely misunderstood. It reminds me of the many times I use the wrong word or mispronounce a word giving it an entirely different meaning.

I recently discovered the subtle difference between the verb “mourir” and “deceder,” both meaning to die. I stopped by to pick up more flowers for my window boxes since the ones I just purchased died suddenly. I don’t know if it was my accent or the way I said it, but when I used the word “mourir,” the florist looked at me strangely with his head cocked to one’s side so I re-formulated and used the past tense of “deceder” to explain what had happened.

He wasn’t surprised and in fact almost chided me for being disappointed that the flowers had deceased in such a short time. They were just spring flowers and not meant to last more than a couple of weeks. If this had been explained as clearly when I bought them, I would have made a different choice. In any event, when I told my husband the story later, he laughed because in fact “deceder” translates more literally to “pass away” which you would use to describe a person rather than a thing. But what made him laugh even harder was when I told him I had explained the story to his mother in an email. I told her I needed to take care of my “jardiniers” thinking I had used the word for flower boxes, “jardinières,” when in fact I had used the word for gardeners.

Where I get in the most trouble is with the words that sound like “koo.” The slightest difference in the way you purse your lips to emit the word can lead to vast confusion. “Cou” means neck, “coup” means blow, “coupe” means cup, “queue” means line and “cul” means ass. While the last word is spelled differently the pronunciation is as subtle as the difference between color and collar in English (two words that my husband often has trouble with). I took my time making a joke the other day about French people standing in line since mispronouncing queue to sound like ass would alter the context entirely. In English, we mispronounce “cul” completely when we say “cul de sac,” which literally means the bottom (or ass if you will) of a sack, or as we refer to it, dead end.

With “coup,” there are many uses: coup de bar, coup de mou (tired); coup de pompe (dead tired); coup de bourre (rushed); coup d’état (polititical coup); coup de grace (final blow); coup de foudre (lightening strike or love at first sight) and even un bon coup (good in bed). I suppose this last one is the only case where one could safely substitute “cul.” Pardonnez moi!