Salut … Saw-loo… Hi

It is all too tempting to move from the formal Bonjour to the cool, yeah-I-am-so-French-that-I-know-slang, Salut. Unfortunately, more often than not, saying salut marks you as the opposite.  As it has been pointed out many times before, we are very informal in North America and saying hi is considered to be the equivalent of hello in many, if not all situations.  In French, salut has a specific place, mostly in the schoolyard or at a BBQ on a sunny afternoon.  It would be considered quite inappropriate to say salut in most other situations, especially by an Anglophone who already has the entirely underserved, in my humble opinion, reputation of being uncouth.  Salut is word that you should teach your kids or use to greet kids.  It is also used between close friends.  It is not an appropriate way of addressing an elder, anyone in a relationship requiring any smidgeon of respect or your drycleaner.  Saw-loo is pronounced by putting equal emphasis on both syllables.