Bonjour / bonsoir

I am surely not the only Anglophone to have agonised over this gravely important question: when does evening begin in France? In our eagerness to dispense with formalities in ordinary conversation, we English speakers have allowed 'Good evening' or the constabulary 'Evenin' all' to decline in favour of the temporally neutral 'Hello', 'Can I help?' or 'Yo wassup?'.

The French remain refined in this matter, as is to be expected. The first choice to be made upon greeting somebody is to distinguish between day bonjour and evening bonsoir (I acknowledge the exception of the informal salut). I, the hapless anglais, have watched the advent of eventide with trepidation. What if, I ask myself, in this grey area between four and seven, I have to converse with someone? What if I am obliged to begin the exchange? What if, after the exertion of making this decision, all my French vocabulary evaporates again?

It's that time of day / evening again...

I have set off with bonjour at five and received bonsoir in reply. My consequently supremely confident bonsoir at six has been met with a bemused bonjour. I wondered whether evening was determined by the illumination of the Tour Eiffel. A bonsoir in broad daylight put paid to that theory. What difficult waters grey areas are.

Then, as I sought my daily bread one day / evening, the answer was revealed. The boulangère - whose vocation is so noble that she must be right - greeted me with bonjour, and then the gentleman after me with bonsoir. This, I understood at once, thunderstruck, was the moment of truth. The time! What was the time‽ (not easy to check when laden with bread). Dear reader, I can disclose the French nation's second most closely guarded secret, after the supernatural secret ingredient of the baguette: the official time at which bonsoir replaces bonjour is fifty-seven minutes and twenty-three seconds past five o'clock. I shall go forth with a greater spring in my step.