Free time and sport

These are the words for an evening and a weekend. Halfway down is la revue, and English has taken one slice of it and left the rest. The everyday sense is a magazine, the kind with articles rather than news: j'ai acheté une revue pour le voyage. The second is the stage show with songs and sketches, which is the only one English borrowed, spelt the same and pronounced « re-view ». The third is inspection: passer en revue is to review troops, and by extension to go through a list of things one by one. All three come from revoir, to look at again — an article looked over, a succession of scenes looked at, soldiers looked along. English split the same verb into « review » and « revue » and gave each one job.