Aide-Mémoire and Amuse-Bouche
Aide-Mémoire and Amuse-Bouche
Pardon My French
Extra Muros continues the serialization of Pardon My French, a light-hearted look at some of the French expressions that have taken up residence in the Anglosphere.
Half the fun of writing fables is the invention of names for characters. Thus, in Minor Maledictions, the Pratcheresque tale I came close to finishing last Christmas (and hope to complete in the Yuletide to come), the two protagonists of the piece bear the names Anna Falaxis and M. Alice Aforethought. In the sequel to that story, moreover, I hope to find places in the dramatis personae for Ed Memoire and A.H. Muse-Bouche.
The inspiration for the latter monikers comes from a pair of imported words that, while describing two very different things, form their plurals in an odd way. Thus, when the French speak of a single handbook, full of ‘formulae the text-books know’, they call it l’aide-mémoire. When, however, they mention two such manuals, they refer to them as les aide-mémoire. (That is, they save the ‘esses’ for the escargots.)
Likewise, bite-sized appetizers, similar in both size and purpose to the savory treats that martini-drinking folk in the ‘sixties called canapés, are, in the language of their inventors, les amuse-bouche. (Of late, some people of the parlez-vous persuasion have been adding a gratuitous ‘ess’ on the far end of bouche. Here at Extra Muros, however, we regard this practice as something that, like the retirement of Gérard Depardieu, heralds the impending demise of Francophone civilization.)
The esslessness of both les aide-mémoire and les amuse-bouche stems from the fact that the first part of each pair is a verb. That is, a handbook aids the memory in much the same way as a teensy-weensy treat amuses the mouth.
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