Faux Pas

Faux Pas
( or how I learned first hand the meaning of the term)

My husband, Sam, was on the board of directors of his company, a major accounting firm, and he made many overseas trips and I frequently accompanied him. Our first trip to Paris was a delight. Remembering all the movies I had seen which featured Paris locales, I felt like Gigi as we stood on the observation deck of the Eiffel Tower and gazed out over the city. We walked along the Seine and stepped into the grandeur of Notre Dame Cathedral. We visited the Louvre and marveled at the Mona Lisa. We strolled down the Avenue des Champs Ellesse to the Arch d'Triumphe. We dined at La Tour d'Argent. The dining room features an excellent view of the river Seine at night.. We toured Versailles

Neither of us knew a word of French but we got along just fine but before we returned on another trip to France I determined to learn at least a smattering of the language. I started attending classes at the local Alliance Française ,an international French language school, which has a branch in Atlanta.

We watched videos of Pierre and Mirerre, a French couple, and their adventures.Then we repeated the dialogue and acted out the scenes in French. Madame Saporta allowed only French spoken in the classroom so we quickly learned to converse a little.

Having no grasp of the grammatical aspect of the language, I decided to sign on for another class at Georgia State University in addition to the French 101. Since I would be driving to the downtown campus anyway, I decided to take another class while I was there. I chose Political Science the second semester as it dovetailed time wise with the French course.

The first day in the Poly Sci course I realized I had made a mistake in choosing this class.. It was in a large classroom of the amphitheater type. I prefer smaller classes.The professor was boring and bossy. Immediately she stated that all students in the class would have to divide up into groups of 6 or 8 and study and research together on their own time. Baloney, I said to myself. I am way past the age of these students and besides, I am just here to fill in a block of time, although I do have an interest in political science. Long story short I immediately dropped the course and simply stuck with the French.

The next week, back at Alliance Francaise, Madame Saporta was registering our small class for the current session. I was standing at Madame Saporta's desk while another student, Albert Andrews, waited to sign up for the class. Making small talk I told them about my experience in the Poly Sci class and how I had not liked the BORING professor and had dropped the course.

Albert Andrews, a grey haired man of about 50 listened intently. Then he asked what was the Poly Sci professor's name.

I said her name was ---- Professor Joyce Morris, Why do you ask?

He said "That is my wife. She retained her maiden name".

Drop through the floor time on my part. But we all just had a good laugh and went on into class to converse in rudimentary French.













Main Entry: FAUX PAS
Pronunciation: 'fO-"pä, fO-'
Function: noun
Inflected Form(s): plural faux pas /-"pä(z), -'pä(z)/
Etymology: French, literally, false step
: BLUNDER; especially : a social blunder