Every culture has its euphemisms. In English we talk about correctional facilities and putting our pets to sleep. Here in Paris, I’m struck by two expressions that seem ubiquitous, especially in this season of winter floods and railway strikes.
The first is fermeture exceptionelle, an exceptional closing. I first ran into this expression when I tried to take my class to a pair of Dada exhibits at the paired museums at the opening of the Tuileries garden, the Jeu de Paume and the Orangerie. It was sleeting lightly — for a New Englander, nothing to pay attention to. But each of the possible gates to the museums was closed. When I finally followed one determined gentleman through the tall gates at the center of the garden, we were both pushed out by a guard. “Fermeture exceptionelle!” he exclaimed. I tried to explain that we were not entering the garden itself, but only going to the museum. No matter, apparently. Sleet was exceptional and warranted a closing everywhere.
We returned to the museums a few days later, and happily viewed the exhibits. I had, however, planned to visit my local public pool after class and had left my nylon swimming bag in the vestiaire at the Orangerie while we popped over to the Jeu de Paume. After dismissing the class, I trotted back to the first museum, only to find a line of perplexed, angry art lovers berating the guard at the gate. “Fermeture exceptionelle,” he explained to me, wearily.
“But the Jeu de Paume is open,” I said. “I just came from there.” I explained about the bag. He couldn’t say why one museum would close and not the other; a fermeture exceptionelle made, well, exceptions. After some wheedling and prodding, he let me past the gates to the side door, where an accommodating museum worker asked me what had been in the bag. Fearing to give the wrong answer, I explained it contained a bathing suit and towel. With a knowing smile, he handed it over.
Since then, I have encountered so many fermetures exceptionelles that they seem more like fermetures arbitraires. Museums are prone to them, as are favorite coffee shops, swimming pools, and government offices. Sometimes it seems as if you get a pass for a fermeture exceptionelle when the rail lines are perturbés, which is my other French euphemism this year. For several weeks now, the French have been undergoing rolling strikes on long-distance and local rail, as well as with Air France. The cognate, of course, is perturbed, a word I’ve only heard used in reference to people, not light rail. But you can easily translate perturbé as unsettled or disrupted. What does it mean, for the line that runs to Charles de Gaulle or Orly airport to be disrupted? It means, of course, that the striking workers are canceling some schedules but leaving others untouched. While the strike, or grève, is bound by law to give notice to travelers, one cannot always be certain exactly which schedules will be canceled. By calling the Réseau Express Régional B, for instance, perturbé, the announcements that go up at the bus stops and come over crackling sound systems on the Metro platforms are giving passengers a heads-up without actually referencing anything about the strikes or the political tensions rising in France.
Other euphemisms abound in French, as they do in English — faire le grand saut, for instance, is equivalent to “kicking the bucket”; une longue maladie is code for cancer, just like “a long illness.” But much this spring seems to be perturbed and exceptional — in France, at least. Or, perhaps, everywhere. What are your euphemisms for spring 2018?