Beware of False Friends

The rather appropriately named French term faux amis is used to describe the hundreds of false cognates found between French and English. Literally, this translates to ''false friends.'' And, like any good traitor, these friends can get you into trouble. The main problem for English speakers is that these words look so similar to our own we just assume that they are identical in meaning. Not so. Here are some common faux amis:

Blesser (to injure) vs. Bless
Attendre (to wait for) vs. Attend
Bras (arm) vs. Bras
Chair (flesh) vs. Chair
Coin (corner) vs. Coin

You begin to see the problem. And so, with the potential hazard of this situation adequately described, I would like to tell a story. Tonight I sat down to an absolutely delicious dinner (spinach and goat cheese quiche, ravioli, green salad) and, like every night, began talking to my host family. We discussed the food, the weather, our day, and my recent trip to Nice. At one point, they began talking about my sandwich meat in the refrigerator. I was somewhat confused about the relevancy when I realized that they were worried about it spoiling. They simply wanted to know how long ago I had purchased it. Then I proceeded to tell them that I'm not really used to having meat spoil so fast because in the states everything is so full of préservatifs (those of you who know French, feel free to start laughing at my expense). My host mother looked at me a little quizzically and so I repeated it. Plein de préservatifs. She started laughing. "You mean conservateur,'' she said. ''Préservatifs is something completely different. For another conversation.'' By this point I knew that I had finally made that inevitable slip of the tongue and so I finished the sentence and looked over at my host father whose English is the better of the two. He smiled and said, "Condom." And so, friends and family, I just informed the French that American lunch meat is full of condoms. In truth, I have absolutely no idea what packaged sandwich meat is made of, but I'd like to think it doesn't really matter. All the preservatives cancel it out anyway, n'est-ce que pas?