A term for "screwed up".....
>From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
For the web comic, see Faux Pas (web comic).
A faux pas (fo-pa) is a violation of accepted, although unwritten, social
rules. Faux pas are very culture-specific; what is considered good manners in
one culture can be considered a horrible faux pas in another. For example, in
[English language|English-speaking]] Western countries it is usually considered
good manners to bring a bottle of wine when coming to someone's house for
dinner. In France, however, this is considered insulting as it seems to imply
that the dinner hosts are unable to provide their own good wine; instead,
bringing flowers to the hostess is never a faux pas, with the exception of some
Asian countries where you need to be very careful which kind of flowers you
bring.
The expression come from French: false step. Interestingly, 'faux pas' is not a
common expression in French, it is high-level language. It is occasionally
employed to describe a physical loss of balance or the general mistakes (for
instance: mes faux pas dans la vie, the mistakes I made in my life); but it is
hardly used in the figurative meaning applied to it in English. If you mention
faux pas in this context during conversation in France, your interlocutor may
think you are making a slight grammatical mistake with faut pas, colloquial
pronunciation of il ne faut pas, meaning must not in English. To express faux
pas' English meaning, the French usually would say gaffe, erreur.
Note that faux pas is both the singular and plural, pronounced identically in
both cases. A common mistake is to add a /z/ sound when referring to the plural.
Best,
Will
*********** REPLY SEPARATOR ***********
On 5/3/05 at 7:01 PM John Irwin wrote:
>What is a "faux pas"
>
>john kb9tc
>
>K4IBC <k4ibc@bellsouth.net> wrote:
>All the books they are listing are done that way. I guess they figure they
>will get the 1 percenters.
>Bill
>
>----- Original Message -----
>From: "Will Matney"
>To:
>Sent: Tuesday, May 03, 2005 8:20 PM
>Subject: [Amps] Caught another
>
>
>> While looking through eBay for a book on transformers, I seen another
>faux
>pas by the same seller yet again! When you look, the LIST price is $150.00
>and is striken through as to say special price. Then, just under it, their
>price is $153.02!!!!
>>
>> Another one I had to laugh at....
>>
>>
>http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=378&item=4542661259&rd=1&ssPageName=WD1V
>>
>>
>> Best,
>>
>> Will
>>
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>>
>
>
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