Safety and emergencies

The list nobody wants to need, which is the argument for learning it early. Its most dangerous entry is blesser: to injure, to wound. Il a été blessé means he was hurt, and le blessé is the casualty. To bless is bénir, and nothing on this page goes near it. The resemblance is not pure accident, though, and the history is worth a minute. Old English blētsian, the ancestor of « to bless », meant to mark with blood, to consecrate by sprinkling — it took its holy sense only as the church’s translation of Latin benedicere. Blesser comes from Frankish blettjan, to bruise. So both words start at blood and end at opposite poles, one in a church and one in an ambulance. On a page about emergencies that is the most expensive confusion available.