In the second part of our two-part series on French greetings, we give you the lowdown on how the French shake hands. Words Charles Timoney
‘To shake hands with someone’ in French is serer la main à quelqu’un. The English verb ‘shake’ refers to the slight up and down movement that you traditionally make with your hands when shaking hands with someone and formally saying, ‘How do you do?’ When French people shake hands there is none of this up and down movement, you just grasp the other person’s hand and keep your hand immobile during the grasping process. This is reflected in the French word serer, which means ‘to grasp’ and not ‘to shake’.
The French are much amused by the British notion of shaking people’s hands rather than just grasping them. This is brilliantly reflected in Astèrix chez les Bretons where Astèrix and Obelix go off and discover all that is odd on the other side of the Channel. Thus, when the character Jolitorax offers to shake hands with Astèrix and Obelix, he says, “Secouns-nous les mains!” instead of the proper French expression, serrons-nous les mains. For French readers this conjures up images of the participants violently shaking their hands as though to get the dust off them. As I am known to be English, “secouns-nouse les mains” is something that gets said surprisingly often when people greet me.
From A Certain Je Ne Sais Quoi by Charles Timoney, Penguin, £8.99
Read more in the January issue of Living Abroad magazine
