As time went by, however, it seems that people were increasingly inclined to say, instead or as well, non vado passum, meaning ‘I’m not going (a) step’. Vado was a verb form meaning ‘I go, I am going’, so non vado signified ‘I’m not going’. In Latin, the word for ‘not’ was non, and it was placed before the verb. How could a word meaning ‘step’ end up meaning ‘not’? – because that is what really did happen. On the face of it, this is something of a surprise. What is intriguing about the two senses of pas as ‘not’ and ‘step’ in French, however, is that they were originally one and the same word. Pas, paso and pace all descend from the Latin word passum, ‘step’. The Spanish equivalent of French pas is paso, as in paso doble, literally ‘double step’. In ballet, a pas de deux is a dance for two people and pas de chat, ‘a cat’s step’, is a jumping step where each foot is alternately raised up to the knee of the opposite leg. You may also know that pas in French has another totally different meaning: ‘step’, corresponding to the English word pace.
