When I first received news about my au pair job in Paris, I was a little puzzled about the way it was reported to family and friends in French. You see, in all the conversation there was one repeating motif that stuck out in my (in)comprehension – and that was regarding my employer. Every time my future boss was referred to in a conversation, it was always as “la bonne femme” which in my limited understanding of the situation, meant “the good woman” who was taking me under her wing.

‘Hey!’ I wanted to cry out, ‘I’m not such a charity case! Even though I don’t speak French, I’m otherwise very employable!’

Until I found out that bonne femme just means “the (random) woman” or “that woman”, no personal character slur against me was intended, it’s just that the French seem to be very polite about strangers (innocent until proven guilty?), which makes funny situations where say, a car crash can be jocularly reported amongst friends as “oh yeah, I ran up the good woman’s rear.” Ohhhh-la-la…

Bonhomme is also in common usage, and can be frequently heard in the winter months with the term bonhomme de neige (snowman) inciting cries of glee from young children.

I was also reading recently that “Jacques Bonhomme” was an insulting nickname for the average Parisian city-dweller from Sorbonne students in the thirteenth century…

So – good people of the world – there you go!