Eating out

The list for a table booked for eight o’clock. Near the end is renvoyer un plat, and that verb does five jobs English hands to five unrelated words. It sends a thing back: renvoyer un plat en cuisine. It *dismisses* a person: renvoyer un employé is to sack somebody, and se faire renvoyer is to be expelled from school. It *adjourns: renvoyer une audience puts a hearing off to another date. It reflects: le miroir renvoie la lumière. And it refers*: renvoyer le lecteur à la page douze, whence le renvoi, a footnote marker. The thread is always the same — something is sent away from where it is — and only the English translations look unrelated. The cost of guessing is high in one direction: reading il a renvoyé son assistant as « sent back » loses a dismissal.