Bad news for tourists who thought that zealously studying French would help them negotiate their way through Paris, Normandy or the Loire Valley: The French have decided that it takes too much effort, too much time, or makes too much sense to actually use whole words. Or maybe it's just another way of keeping tourists linguistically off-balance. Whatever the reason, the French have now taken to using partial words. If you ask a chic Parisienne where you can have lunch, she might suggest a macdo - pronounced mac-DOUGH and meaning McDonald's. But if you're looking for a place to have a good, long evening meal, the waiter at the café where you are resting your feet may tell you to find yourself a resto, which stands for restaurant and is pronounced rest-OH. Eavesdroppers may add that to find that resto you pay attention to la pub, (lah puib) a stand-in for la publicité, or advertising, and not an eatery named after an English drinking place. They may also be kind enough to add that you should find a resto with clim (cleem). Don't cringe. A clim is not an exotic dish made of garden animals forced to march into and drown in garlicky butter. It is short for climatisation, or air conditioning. Since every French person's most cherished skill is the ability to parlay what should be a 30-second conversation into a dialogue lasting hours, the discussion of clim will almost certainly lead to a heated debated about other things that get cold. So you may hear talk of a frigo (free-GOH), which subs these days for refrigerateur. But, then, we say fridge, so we are in no position to whine about that corruption of language. Should you hear mention of a congel (conn-JEL), the topic will have jumped to congelateurs, or freezers, either as a way of debating their merits or, more likely, as part of a generally derisive sneer at the American penchant for frozen foods.

If one of those new acquaintances at the cafe introduces the man he is with as his beauf, pronounced boff, don't jump to conclusions. He is introducing his beau- frere, or brother-in-law. (Don't confuse that boff with the boff you hear repeated a lot in conversations. When a boff ends in a long string of fs, say four or five, that is the Gallic equivalent of "Oh give me a break!" as a response to a previous statement. Used just right, it also conveys this meaning: You are an idiot.) Of course, because the French are almost always in an uproar about something, the chances are good that you will run into a manif (mahn-EEF). That would be a manifestation, or demonstration. Any manif worthy of its cobblestone barricades will certainly be attended by at least one fana. A fanatique is more easily recognized as fanatic.

If you do run into a demonstration, in addition to a fana there will be a fac or two. A fac is not a member of the secret police, but rather of the faculté, or faculty, of a nearby university and is probably observing the manif in order to write a massive volume about that particular rebellion. Certainly, you want to be sure not to interfere when some of the participants get hauled off to the hosto (OSS- toh). Not the jail, no. The hospital where wounds will be treated. It may well be, of course, that there won't be any good riots around to observe. Which will leave you enough time, perhaps, to go to the prisu (priz-OO), which every French person secretly knows as the Prisunic, a popular department store; or, the cine (SEEN-ay), once known as the cinema. And don't think that you can start a counter-revolution to the shortening trend by asking for a café decaffeine when you stop for a little something after the movie. That will surely mark you as a tourist. Ask for a decaf. Just be sure to pronounce it right: ndeh-CAH, not deecalf.