Society and politics

The list for a newspaper’s front page. Its fourth entry is le conseil municipal, and English has two words there that sound identical and are spelt differently. « Council » is the body — the group of people who meet and decide, as in le conseil municipal or le conseil des ministres. « Counsel » is the advice — and in a courtroom the barrister who gives it. French uses le conseil for both: je te donne un conseil is a piece of advice, and le conseil se réunit jeudi is a committee. The person follows the same split: le conseiller is a councillor when elected and an adviser when consulted, and English spells those « councillor » and « counsellor ». Nothing in the sound tells them apart, so this is one of the few places where writing English is harder than speaking it.