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Do you say "consensus" or "consinsus"?A "prodigal" or "prodigy" of the violin?The editorial staff returns to these little daily errors.

One letter less, a consonant for a vowel, a word instead of the other...And here is the flayed term.These small daily errors are not very serious.The largest of linguists is also subject to these common blunders.No doubt because the French language is a bottomless well of small subtleties.If they sometimes lead to a few mistakes, they also make its charm!The editorial team invites you to return to five words that we mistreat, thanks to the lights of the French Academy.

● "consensus" pronounced "consansus"

It’s a story of pronunciation.Of course, the word is written "consensus".But let us remember that in French, there are a certain number of words in which the "-E-" Digram is pronounced "in" in "in" in "in" in "in" in "in" in "in" in "in" in "in" in "in".This is the case for example for the words "exam", "agenda", "benzene", "pentagon" or "placenta".All pronounce "in".Ditto for words ending in "-ien", like "dog", "nothing", "Alsatian".It is the same for "consensus" and the adjective which drifts "consensual".They pronounce well "Consinsus" and "Consinsuel".This little error is undoubtedly due to the analogy of the word with "consent" or "sensual", underline the wise men.The latter also remind you that "consancing" pronunciation is accepted in use, even if "consinsual" remains better language.

● background, funds, fonts

Here is a word source of questions.Do we write a "background" or "do" cellar?An "investment fund" or "funds"?The "homonym triplet" "background", "funds" and "fonts" is evil...To distinguish them, analyze their meaning."Background", from the Latin fundus, has many senses: it is what constitutes the lower limit (the bottom of a trunk), which is located at the greatest depth (the bottom of a well), butalso what is the most distant from the opening, the entrance (the bottom of the room).It also designates the essential and permanent qualities of a being (it has a good background).The form "funds" can be the plural of "background" but it is also an autonomous name, which designates a good or a set of goods likely to allow the exercise of an activity, a profession (a fundof business).It is also a capital, real estate or not, that we assert (fund and income) and it is finally a set of resources likely to be exploited (the fund of a library).The third form, "font", is only used in the plural.It belongs to the same family as "fountain" and hardly meets in the phrase "baptismal font".

● "prodigal" or "prodigy"?

Ah, the paronyms of the French language...As spicy as a Mexican sauce.Witness the words "prodigal" and "prodigy", these false abniggers which make us turn in a praise.If their spelling is almost identical, they differ in their nature and their meaning.The "prodigy" designates an "extraordinary event, of magical or supernatural character".It is said that one thing is "prodigious".By metonymy, it is also "a person who is out of the ordinary, whose qualities, talents or, more rarely, the faults, the vices have a remarkable character".On the other hand, the "prodigal" is "the one who makes excessive expenses, who dilapid his property", according to the Robert.We speak of "the prodigal child" in the Bible, the one who is welcomed with joy by his father after an absence marked by expenses and excesses.Be careful not to confuse with the phrase "to be prodigal", which means "which distributes, gives abundantly".

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● "Civil Code" or "Civil Code"?

The question does not seem to be asking, since the word "code" is a common name.A clarification all the same: "code" is written well with a tiny except when it enters a title.In this specific case, he is adorned with a capital letter: "Civil Code", "Criminal Code", "Code of Criminal Procedure", "Forestry Code" or "Rural Code".An exception all the same, to honor the subtleties of the French language: we write, without capital letters, the "Highway Code", since the articles which compose it are not legislative but regulatory texts.

● "Do you say" or "you say"?

This is another story of homonyms.What makes it possible to distinguish in writing the present "said", from the simple past "tells" is this famous circumflex accent."The context generally allows to know if we are dealing with a present or a past, and therefore what form you have to choose.Let us also remember that the imperative is a present and that it should never be written with a circumflex accent ".

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