“faux pas”
I noticed this curious little tidbit probably a few months ago, it resurfaced when I was in Florida, and just again today, so I thought I’d share this with you.
I’m curious if the first people to use “faux pas” in its current sense realized they had two sets of homonyms that end up with the same overarching meaning….. quite witty if they did. Here’s how it works:
“faux pas”:
“faux”: false
“pas”: step
= false step, misstep
∴ a social slip-up, blunder
“faut pas”:
shortened from “il ne faut pas” in slang
“faut”: must
“ne….. pas”: not
= [indefinite] “one” must not, “one” shouldn’t
∴ when used as a noun, a social blunder
Quite witty, if that was the intention. Oh words, how I love thee…..
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