aubade (oh-bahd) noun, feminine
  1. dawn serenade
  2. French lingerie company with a popular advertising campaigne involving a series of lessons on seduction–see today’s story

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A Day in a French Life…

             * Encounters with a two-timing noun *

You could say she led a double life. By day, she stalked me along every French street, especially as I sat waiting for bus number 19 at Castellane or bus number 7 along Boulevard Perrier back in the windy city of Marseilles. Wind works to her advantage, mind you. A little whirl of air here, a gust there and la voilà–there she was en live* (when she wasn’t towering over me suggestively from one of the billboards she called home).

She was always dressed in lace or silk or fishnet. Up until a few days ago, it was underwear that defined her. Nothing more. She did have a name, and to pronounce it you’d say Oh bad! (Fitting, non?)

Like I said, she was meaningless to me and I could not see beyond her satin balconnets.* She was an object, nothing more. She was hoopla, not human.

It did not occur to me to look her up or to query her meaning. No use trying to talk sense into her. Besides, she was always handing out lessons, suggestive stuff like:

"Leçon no. 3:
Placer quelques obstacles dans son chemin."
(Place a few obstacles in his path.)

"Leçon no. 4:
Lui rappeler combien vous êtes fragile."
(Remind him how fragile you are.)

"Leçon no. 5:  Feindre l’indifférence."
(Feign indifference.)

"Leçon no. 10: Poser le piège et attendre"
(Set a trap and wait.)

"Leçon no. 45: Lui offrir votre coeur"
(Offer him your heart.)

I paid no attention to her lessons. "Marketing!" said I, reminded of the fact that "s" "e" "x"  sells.

Then the other day, I ran into her in the most unlikely of places: a popular word hangout that I frequent. There she was, this time out of the limelight and in between the sheets. Ha! I knew I’d catch her there, tôt ou tard.* I just didn’t expect to find her wrapped in paper and bound among thousands.

I had opened the door to my word hangout (the name of the joint is Le Petit Larousse) and happened to be flipping through its two thousand bound sheets, when I did a double-take on page 97.

           "Aubade"

Aubade… Oh bad! There she was. And that’s how I discovered my usual lace-clad stalker to be not just a frilly nana* but a French noun! A two-timing noun at that. While to me (and most of France) she meant underwear, to the word-savvy underground she had a second life and a meaning all her own:

aubade (noun, feminine)
1. a dawn serenade

Now isn’t she the most clever name for a lingerie company?

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*References: en live = live; balconnets (m) = half-cups (bra); tôt ou tard = sooner or later; la nana (f) = woman

More stories about my French life here (click on cover):

Hear today’s word: Download aubade.wav

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Expression:
donner une aubade à quelqu’un = to serenade somebody at dawn

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Citation du Jour
Nul ne peut atteindre l’aube sans passer par le chemin de la nuit. One may not reach the dawn save by the path of the night. –Khalil Gibran