Five words we love to say (but which don't exist in French)

They come naturally to us in the mouth.

We sometimes use a vocabulary which is certainly pleasant ... but which does not exist in our language.

Do you see them, these verbs borrowed from English that we

"francize"

?

It is regrettable.

But not inevitable.

The editorial staff has selected a few, and suggests that you forget about them in favor of their French twins.

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● Perform

"He performed well today!"

, we often hear at the end of a match.

This ugly verb is a tracing of the English

"to perform"

, which literally means

"to carry out, carry out or accomplish a task"

.

We also hear

“performers”

, or

“performance”

, as a synonym for

“concert”

.

»READ ALSO - Five words that we think we use wisely (when not)

Ironically, the term

“performance”

, which already existed in Old French, was borrowed from English during the 19th century to apply to the field of sport, notes the French Academy.

So let's banish these anglicisms, and replace them with

"perform a performance"

, or

"author of the performance."

Receive

"Receive, check the condition of goods, check the functioning of a device before it is put into service."

According to the definition given by the Treasury of the French language, the verb

“to receive”

designates the fact of carrying out operations after having received an order.

It is also used to say

: "to receive, to welcome something"

in the field of technology.

However, we observe a common use of this verb in the sense of

"to receive"

:

"he received his friends last night"

.

Let us keep in mind, so as not to make the mistake again, that the etymology of this verb is indeed

: "to verify a delivery"

.

● Demonstration

This word has more and more the ambition to dethrone our French equivalent:

"They went to a demonstration this morning"

.

Let us not forget that French is provided with the term

"manifestation"

, created from

"manifesto"

, and which means

"public expression of a feeling, of an opinion"

.

This is what the

“demonstrators”

mean when they take

to the streets:

“make known publicly, proclaim”

their demands.

● Impact

"What you told me impacted my decision

.

"

This Anglicism is as boring as a punch. Needless to say,

“impact”

is not French. If the noun

“impact” does

exist in the French language, it does not designate anything other than the impact of a projectile against a body, or the trace, the hole it leaves. It can only be used figuratively "to evoke an effect of great violence", we read in the section

"Dire, ne pas dire"

, of the French Academy. However, today it is made an equivalent of

"consequence"

,

"result"

or

"influence"

. Thus the verb

"to impact"

, used instead of:

"Have consequences, effects, influence on something."

● Support

"I have supported this team for years"

,

"you are not going to support this candidate anyway!"

Red fire.

In French, unlike the English where this verb comes from, we

“support”

, we

“encourage”

a team or a candidate.

We give it our support, our help.

But the verb

“to support”

is not adequate to refer to sporting events and, all the more so, other competitions.