Attention!

French speakers have a quirky social custom that seems to be universal across the nations we have visited. It goes something like this:  Pretend you are walking on a sidewalk talking with your friend. Because you are engaged in conversation, you are not watching the sidewalk, trip on an uneven spot, and lunge forward. Immediately your French speaking friend will urgently say, 'Attention!'. In other words, 'Watch out!'. This is also true of other mis-steps such as tripping up stairs, stepping in holes, running into walls, falling off chairs, and bumping your head on low hanging objects. Attention!  Maybe its just me, but telling somebody to 'Watch out!' after he/she has already stubbed his/her toe is sort of pointless. It seems to me a well timed, 'Watch out', before an embarrassing face plant may even avoid the fall, trip, or bump all together. Recently I made sure to tell my French speaking friend in Sfax, Tunisia, that I prefer he warn me BEFORE I get hit by a car, fall off a wall, or run in front of a speeding moped. Fortunately he was very understanding of my strange ways and probably saved me at least once from stepping in front of a truck with a preemptive 'Attention!'. So I'm really thinking of asking some famous French speakers (Celine Dion, Jean-Claude Van Dame, Inspector Clouseau, Pepe LePeu),  to rally behind the Preemptive Attention Movement (PAM).  For the safety of clutzy non-French speakers and the inattentive like me.