Public procurement

The nineteenth entry is le délai de suspension, the pause between choosing a winner and signing the contract, which English procurement calls the « standstill period ». The noun at its end does far more everyday work in French than « suspension » does in English. In a house une suspension is a light fitting: the lamp that hangs from the ceiling on a flex or a chain, sold under that name in any furniture shop, where English says « pendant light ». On a page les points de suspension are the three dots that leave a sentence hanging. In a meeting une suspension de séance is a short break called by the chair, after which the same sitting resumes. Under a car la suspension is what English calls it too. The thread running through all of them is something held in the air, but a reader who meets une suspension design in a catalogue is being offered a lamp, not a ban. On this list the sense is the legal one: during le délai de suspension the award hangs, nothing may be signed, and a losing bidder still has time to go to court.