Sunday Rest: oeillade. Word Not To Use Today.

 French is a beautiful language - ask anyone French - but it does contain vowel sounds unknown and unsayable by rather a large proportion of the population of the Earth.

The French word oeil provides an example. It means eye, and it's sort of pronounced er-ee, said very fast and without sounding the r. Yes, a bit like that. But there's not much chance of your saying it in a way that's not going either to amuse or horrify a French person.

Oeil is not an English word (well, oeil-de-boeuf, is in the dictionary - it's a round window (it means literally bull's eye) - but it's easily ignored) but oeillade is English. It means a suggestive glance, and if you're not trying to be too French about it you say it errYARD.

But still, the expression suggestive glance is freely available.

And it's much, much, easier to say and spell.

Sunday Rest oeillade. This is French. The Latin for eye is oculus.