Music: the technical words

At the end of a concert in London the audience shouts « encore », and the word is French. At the end of a concert in Paris it shouts bis, and the word is Latin — bis, twice, the same bis that marks an article inserted into a code without renumbering the rest, l’article 7 bis, and a house squeezed in between two others, 12 bis rue de Sèvres. French has built the noun of this list on it: le bis is the extra piece played once the printed programme has run out, and le public a obtenu deux bis counts two of them. There is a verb as well, bisser, which is both to call for a piece again and to play it again. What French never does is use encore for any of this. Encore is an everyday adverb meaning still or again — il joue encore, he is still playing — so shouting it at a pianist would land as an observation rather than a request. The word crossed the Channel and took up a job it has never held at home.