Hello everyone! Thank you for joining me for this new episode of the Authentic French podcast. As always, I am very happy to be back with you to discover a new French expression together. And today, we are going to look at the expression "return the elevator".
Before that, let me just ask you a little favor if you haven't done it yet. You can rate the Français Authentique podcast on the podcast app you use on a daily basis, whether it's Google, Apple or something else, at least via what you use. You can leave 5 stars if you feel like it. It really allows Français Authentique to help even more people learn our beautiful language, which is French, so I thank you in advance.
Let's come to the explanation of the different words that make up the expression "return the elevator".
To return. In "return", we have the prefix "re" which means a repetition, which means "again", and we have the verb "to send" which means to send. So to return, finally, means to send again, to send something back once again.
And the elevator is the device that allows malaysia whatsapp number data people to go up or down several floors of a building in a closed or open cabin. And we find elevators in buildings, department stores, hospitals, in short, almost everywhere, especially in buildings that are made up of several floors.
Regarding the meaning of this expression, well the origin of this expression dates back to the end of the 19th century. So it's a period when the first elevators were invented. So at that time, each floor had a return button to send the elevator down, because at the time, elevators were not like today, they were very slow. So, once arrived at his floor, it was customary for the person to press this return button so that the users who are on the ground floor could use the elevator without waiting, because it was very long. In fact, it was a kind of courtesy in the end to have the elevator sent back to the ground floor.
And since then, the expression "return the elevator" has remained in our daily language to express gratitude and the fact of returning a favor to the person who helped us, who supported us in something. So it really shows the recognition, the gratitude that we have towards this person. It means returning a favor, doing a service in return, helping someone who helped me before, I return the favor, thanking someone or showing their gratitude by doing the same. So it always has a positive meaning. When we say "return the elevator", it is always positive, it always means expressing gratitude and the fact of doing a service in return.
To give you a better idea of the expression, I will give you three examples, three very specific contexts that will help you understand.
First example: "Jean helped me a lot during my move. On occasion, I would like to return the favor". So here, you see that it is someone who helped another person with a move and this person would like to return the favor, she would ultimately like, she too, to be of service to him, to be able to help him with something, in any case to express gratitude to him by her presence.
Second example: "Thanks for your help, Paul. Without you, I would never have managed to finish my article on time. I'll return the favor one day." Here, it's the same. We can really see that the person feels gratitude. She expresses her gratitude to the person who gave her her services and she tells her that she will return the favor one day, which means that one day, she too, this person, will be able to help Paul to thank him for what he did for her.