Richard Littledale's
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'Faux amis' (false friends) are words where the French meaning is not quite what it appears to be in English. Thus 'actuellement' is not 'actually' but 'currently' and 'lecture' is not 'lecture' but 'reading'. Any student of French, at whatever level, must look out for these things lest they trip themselves up. I write as one who has been caught out. The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) have had some problems recently with 'false friends' of their own (see the BBC News story). When it was revealed that the stories in a benefits leaflet featured made-up people, it unleashed a storm of humorous criticism on the internet. Some were poignant:
"Got a degree in science, but there's no jobs. Some were downright silly, like this one claiming to be from a Star Wars stormtrooper:
"Thanks to DWP sanctions I got the courage Others made you think, such as this one claiming to be from bestselling author J.K Rowling:
"I had this absurd idea that I could write a fantasy novel In the end the DWP admitted their mistake and withdrew the stories from the leaflet. Of course, using stories to make a point is as old humankind itself, and it's a perfectly valid way of making a point.. In the Bible we find it employed by people from Nathan the prophet to Jesus himself. The problem is when stories are told in a context where they can be misread as factual. Writing to believers in the early church, James warned his readers that they should let their "yes be yes and their no be no". In other words, they were to be known as people whose word was their bond and the things they said could always be trusted. Christians should always stand out as those whose word can be trusted - even when that becomes a rare commodity. Let's make sure we are a little more reliable at least than the person who tweeted this message to the DWP:
"Thanks to being sanctioned by #DWP |