Faux amis

Although in most cases if an anglophone can't think of the French word, if they take an English word and give it a French pronunciation, they have a fighting chance to be right. When it doesn't it is called a faux amis, a false friend.

In most business transactions with Rick, I am the official translator which works more often than it doesn't.

Today we picked up the new old car and went through the usual downpour of paperwork. I swear the world would have more forests if the French did not require ten copies of innumerable forms for even the most routine transaction. 

I half expect to have to show my electrical bill and identity card to buy bread.

"Ici, votre tampon," Remi, the man who sold us the car said as he pointed to a square on the form. Besides owning the garage, he is also the landlord of one of our good friends. I trust him.

Rick does pick up some French. He heard the word tampon.

"I thought you were past that," he whispered as Remi went to the printer in the other room to make yet more copies.

"It's a stamp I said." I should have thought to tell him the business would need one, because almost everything needs to be stamped. One might get metacarpal syndrome from stamp, stamp, stamping each official paper.

We now will use our wheelbarrow to roll the papers down to the Mairie where the car will be registered to us, but tomorrow morning bright and early Rick will need to order a stamp with the following information on it.

1. The company's name
2. The company's address
3. Telephone numbers
4. Registration number for the company

We are hoping either the Mairie will accept the papers without the stamp (ha) or the stamp will not take months to get here. We do have 15 days to accomplish all this. If we miss the deadline then the car will have to have another control (inspection).

A tampon wasn't what he thought it was, but he has another vocabulary word.