I was prepared for the big items: new language, slower pace of life, different currency. What I didn’t expect when I moved from the U.S. to France were the subtleties — the slight nuances that carried an outsized ability to throw me off my game.
Decades of French lessons schooled me in the strict rules of politesse. I knew to dump my usual Philly greeting (“yo!”) for the more proper “bonjour“ when entering a shop or running into a neighbor on the elevator. What I didn’t know were the word’s other, more sophisticated rules. Walking into a doctor’s office waiting room: Bonjour, everyone. Coming into a department store: No…
