Mobile networks

The eighth entry is le mode duplex, and the word inside it is one English owns without owning the same jobs. In the engineering sense the two agree: both name a link that carries traffic in both directions, and le mode duplex is what separates the outward path from the return. Everywhere else the word has been claimed by other trades. In English, and above all in America, « a duplex » is a building: a house divided into two dwellings, or a flat on two floors. In Britain it is hardly used at all, and the flat there is « a maisonette ». French has that sense too — un duplex, un appartement en duplex — and adds one for which English has no noun at all. On radio and television un duplex is a live link between two places, each side able to answer the other: nous sommes en duplex avec Marseille, une émission en duplex. English has to spell that out — « a live two-way », « down the line » — so the shortest word on this page is the one with no short translation.