This word caused some consternation for me when I was a child. I can remember mother telling me, “Don’t make a moue, darling, you don’t want your face to freeze like that.” It would have been so much simpler if moue was pronounced the same as roué, but as it was for the longest time I thought cows must be inherently bad for ambling about mouing all day. And it is more complicated, not less, if you are learning “cows go moo” from one parent and “cattle don’t moo, they low” from the other. It is simply too too much to grasp for a three year old child, who (whoue?) was both precocious and naive.

Now, let a smile be your umbrella – there’s a phrase I could have grasped.

Sigh. Or not.