Faux Amis

False friends. There' s a lot of them out there. Do you know what I'm talking about? I'm talking about French words that sound like they are very similar to an English word, but in fact mean something else entirely. I'll give you a quick example: the word "le magasin" in French might make you think that it means "magazine", since it looks and sounds so similar. In fact, however, "le magasin" means a "a shop."

Another one that gave me a lot of trouble when I first arrived is the French word "le tampon." For obvious reasons, I thought it meant the object which pertains to feminine hygiene. Well, it turns out that in scientific labs it means "buffer" (we have to use solutions of acid-base buffers all the time in molecular biology), and boy, was I confused when one of the female graduate students in our lab told me, "Tu peux utilisez mon tampon si tu veux" (You can use my buffer if you'd like).

Obviously, it works in the opposite direction. I remember that once, my mom was giving some of Claire's French friends directions for how to drive from St. Louis to Indianapolis. Part of the directions included the phrase, "Eventually, you will take a right turn onto Kessler Boulevard." Unfortunately, the word "eventually" is a false friend. In French, it means "possibly" or "in the possibility that..." So Claire's friends understood, "and maybe you should take a right turn on Kessler Boulevard", not exactly the kind of confidence you want to hear when getting directions to an unfamiliar place.

Fortunately, there's a lot of "vrais amis" (true friends) out there as well--for example, "la television", "la table", "la photo"...I could go on and on. Just yesterday, for instance, I was delighted to hear from my wife that the French word for chewing gum is "le chewing gum."

Oh, and just to clear things up: I never actually liked the TV show, "Friends" but I couldn't find any other graphic for "False Friends" that would be appropriate. So there you go.