Rhetoric and figures

The forty-first and last entry is l’appel à l’émotion, and the noun in front of it is one French word doing five jobs that English hands to five different ones. Here it is the appeal, the move that asks a listener to feel rather than to weigh. On a telephone it is the call: je n’ai pas eu ton appel, un appel en absence. In a courtroom it is the appeal against a judgment, faire appel d’un jugement, and the court that hears it is la cour d’appel. In a classroom it is the register: faire l’appel is to read out the names and see who is missing, and nothing whatever is being asked of anybody. In a ministry it is the tender, un appel d’offres, and its cousin un appel à candidatures is a call for applicants. And in a building it is a draught, un appel d’air. One thread holds all five together, since faire appel à quelqu’un is to call on somebody, so a reader who hears « call » underneath each of them has the sense. What still has to be chosen is the English word, and this entry wants « appeal » and no other.