Quirks of the French language

On top of the difficulties of its spelling and syntax, the French language adds those of its vocabulary. No other neighbouring language has quite so many whims and inconsistencies.

United around their common root, words belonging to the same family naturally share that identical part, to which prefixes or suffixes are added. Yet there are certain families that are entirely inconsistent, much to the detriment of learning their spelling.

Misleading family resemblances

Some words sound as though they belong to the same family. In reality, they are strangers; their meaning and spelling have no connection at all. But these chance resemblances create a great deal of confusion and errors.

Confusions of meaning include: collision (an accidental impact between people or objects) and collusion (a secret agreement between people); conjecture (supposition) and conjoncture (circumstances); express (a fast train) and exprès (with a specific intention or in a special manner); fond (the far end or depth), fonds (capital assets), and fonts (always baptismaux: a baptismal font); ha! (an expression of surprise, or laughter when written ha! ha! ha!)

Some words, which generally belong to the same family, resemble each other so closely that they are often confused, even though their meanings are clearly different. This misfortune frequently befalls the following words: dentition (the formation of teeth; mammals have two sets) and denture (the set of teeth); emmener (used in reference to people and never to inanimate objects) and emporter (used on the contrary in reference to objects, or occasionally people treated as things); colorer (to give colour) and colorier (to apply colour, as in colouring); détonner (to explode) and détonner (to be out of harmony with the general tone).

Alongside these oddities, a number of vocabulary anomalies can be added: certain nouns are used only in the plural, such as frais, arrhes, dépens, dommages et intérêts (or dommages-intérêts), mânes, pénates, fiançailles, épousailles, funérailles, obsèques, semailles, ambages, ténèbres, and mœurs.

Three nouns change gender when moving from the singular to the plural: amour, délice, and orgue are masculine in the singular; amours, délices, and orgues are feminine nouns in the plural.

Some nouns also carry a different meaning in the singular and the plural. For example, un ciseau (a chisel) and des ciseaux (a pair of scissors); une lunette (a telescope) and des lunettes (a pair of glasses).