This question is related to this one and this other one,
both regarding the same matter but from distinct points of view.
After reading the above posts I remained unsatisfied because of what I see as a restriction of the scope of the question.
So let me explain how I would like to expose it again.
First of all, it's clear that the English quid pro quo and the French quiproquo are mutually false friends: briefly summarized, the first one talks about actions (exchanging things, mutual behaviour, and so on) while the latter talks about situations (confusion between two persons).
This was widely commented in the posts I quoted, and it's ok.
But the precise question "What should be a good equivalent for the French quiproquo?" didn't get a real and complete answer.
In fact all posts have only took in account its sense of mistaken identity, but implicitly talkin about people only.
I agree this is the true primary sense, directly due to the litteral translation from latin: qui stands for a person (BTW here we can notice the logical consistency: quid stands for a thing, hence the different sense for the whole formula in English).
But here is the point: in today's current French, this first sense has been widened, so it now concerns not solely persons but also events or even things, in somewhat unclear limits.
Here are some examples:
-
primary sense, about persons
-On m'a dit de m'adresser à Mr Dupont. C'est bien vous ?
-Oui mais Dupond avec un "D" : je pense que vous voulez parler à l'autre Mr Dupont, avec un "T".
-Excusez-moi, c'est un quiproquo. -
about events
-On ne t'a pas vu à la réunion hier.
-On m'avait dit que c'était demain : il y a eu un quiproquo ! -
about things
-J'ai allumé le chauffe-eau mais il n'y a pas d'eau chaude à la douche ! Il y en a pourtant au lavabo.
-Il y a un chauffe-eau séparé pour la douche.
-Ah ! Si on m'avait prévenu il n'y aurait pas eu ce quiproquo.
As you can see, in French quiproquo is essentially matter of ambiguity leading to a mistake, whatever it concerns.
NOTE: French readers might criticize my comment, noting that the expansion of the concept of the person to "everything and anything" is at fault. True, but it is equally true that it is the current use!
So, again the question: is there an English equivalent which would cover this entire scope?
Best Answer
I think the Google translation of quiproquo into misunderstanding may be the best choice.
For example, If our phone connection is poor and I didn't hear what you said correctly, that can lead to a misunderstanding. If someone told me the time of a meeting in UTC, and I assumed it was in a different time zone and missed the meeting, that would also be a misunderstanding.
The misunderstanding can be about anything (person, event, thing), but all the cases that I can think of involve someone not interpreting information about a situation clearly. The problems with interpretation can be caused by obvious reasons, like noise over a phone connection, or by less obvious reasons, like different understandings of a word or phrase.
Mistake is somewhat related, but usually if I make a mistake, it is a wrong action or judgment that is my own responsibility. A misunderstanding has less responsibility or blame. For example, "Because I misunderstood what the professor said in class, I made a mistake and didn't format my paper correctly." The misunderstanding isn't exactly my fault or the professor's fault even though it caused me to make a mistake.
In the sense of bringing comic relief to a stage play, the only term I can think of is "comedy of errors". While the literal definition refers to a play or other narrative work, it can be used figuratively to describe a situation. Usually "comedy of errors" refers to many misunderstandings though, not just one, and often to a chain of errors, where one misunderstanding causes another which causes another.