Santé! Scentez! Sans thé!

Am I perfect? Yes.

(Do I lie? Yes.)

So accept - and laugh at - my imperfection in the following tale:

I have a decent comprehension of the French language - from grammar to vocabulary to speaking it to hearing it. However, I do make the occasional mistake. (And I'm very loosely defining "occasional" - it's impinging on "often")

Much like in English (and probably every other spoken language), French has homophones. Words that sound the same, but have a different meaning. For example: bear/bare, to/too/two, and rays/raise/raze/rase/rehs/reis/res. Even picture/pitcher (depending on who you're talking to, Doug).

I have made homophonic comprehension mistakes in my conversations since I have been in Limoges, but none come as readily or hilariously to mind as the one that occurred during my last trip to France in 2008.

I was at a dinner party with my host family: eating, chatting and enjoying the evening on their rooftop terrace. Someone opened a bottle of wine, filled up our glasses, and then lifted his glass to the company - a nod and a smile were his toast to all. My host-mother then turned to me, proffered her glass and said, "Santé!" Which means "health," or in this situation, a toast "to your health." Seems innocuous and straightforward enough. Well...

Here's what you need to know. The word "santé" is pronounced "sawn-tay" (at least, that's the best approximation I can give for a non-French speaking pronunciation). Do you know what else is pronounced sawn-tay? The verb scenter (and it's imperative 2nd person conjugation scentez). Scenter means "to smell," and thus scentez is the command "smell!" or "smell this!" Do you see where I'm taking this?

So she extended her glass to me and said, "Santé!" But I heard "Scentez!" - "Smell!" So I did. I leaned forward and sniffed her wine glass. I assumed she just wanted me to better appreciate the wine or get my opinion on it. However, the look on her face indicated that I couldn't have been further from the truth. A quick "Um...didn't you say smell?" and a "No, I said to your health, as a toast!" later and she started busting out laughing. I don't blame her - I would have laughed at me, too. It was quite an amusing situation (in retrospect), and one of my favorite tales to tell of my trip.

So there you are. A tale of warning. Learn from my mistakes. If you ever hear something that doesn't make much sense/since/cents, you might want to take a second to stop and ponder it's homophones before acting on what you thought you heard. It could save you an embarrassing situation, but it also might cost you a funny story. Your choice.

(Having no bearing on this story, but interesting: there is a third homophone of santé that I thought of - sans thé which means "without tea." That would have made no sense in the situation, but if I thought that's what she had said, the reaction I would have given would have been less embarrassing - a puzzled look as to what she had said as opposed to me inhaling at the rim of her glass.)

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Finally, for your viewing pleasure: a German immigrant who attempts to make sense of American idioms. His name is Flula, and once you watch one video, you will watch them all. Hilarious.