Interesting! In your reply above, when you say "liaison", the word you wanted is "elision". Just as an informational note, not a criticism. Just trying to help! I studied French one semester at uni and I'd have to say that French and English are a lot alike in their lack (for instance) of regular verbs. I don't remember a lot of it as I took that class in summer school in '82. Idiom has to be the worst, for understanding. I am in southern California, and I see all kinds of things in print in my own country that make no sense. The US is so far across east to west and north to south that even the accents make understanding difficult, sometimes.
Your comment about the prisoner closing his eyes clarifies the confusion about mental presence.
You're right but as the majority of French speakers or nearly the majority. I can use a word instead of another one.
We have so many words phonetically similar that we can easily use the bad word.
Many people say
"Liaison" instead of
"Élision" because we don't use these words in everyday life and the fact meaning are similar.
Few people will make a confusion between words who have radically a different meaning but when meaning is closer it is different.
Liaison is a feminine word pronounced as
\ljɛ.'zɔ̃\ if we follow the pronunciation given by Wiktionary.
I added the ' to show the stress.
Élision is a feminine word pronounced as
\\e.li.'zjɔ̃\ if we follow the pronunciation given by Wiktionary.
I added the ' to show the stress.
I prefer to precise this is the pronunciation given by Wiktionary when I say how to pronounce a word because all speakers doesn't systematically use the standard pronunciation.
Often in French language
(I think it is more often than in English language) if you change a letter you change of word.
If you use the voiceless bilabial plosive consonant
(p in IPA) instead of the voiceless dental plosive consonant
(t̪ in IPA but like I use the transcription of Wiktionary to simplify and that I only add the stress. This consonant is write as t. t in IPA is the t letter in the majority of dialects of English languages but French speakers have the tendency to say t̪ instead of t when they speak in English) to say
"tennis" (Same meaning than in English to speak about this sport and can also designate shoes to play to this sport. Pronounced \te.'nis\) you get
"pénis" (This is not a false friend and you can guess the meaning. The standard pronunciation is \pe.nis\).
Some similar words in French
(m = masculine or masculin in French pronounced \mas.ky.'lɛ̃\ f = feminine or féminin in French pronounced \fe.mi.nɛ̃\) :
1.Tirer
(\ti.ʁe\ To pull , To shoot) and Virer
(\vi.ʁe\ Slang word to say we fired an employee , Change of geographical direction)2.Voir
(\vwaʁ\ To see) and Boire
(\bwaʁ\ To drink)3.Trottoir
(m) (\tʁɔ.twaʁ\ Sidewalk) and Dortoir
(m) (\dɔʁ.twaʁ\ Dormitory)4.Fille
(f) (\fij\ Girl) and Bille
(f) (\bij\ Marble in the context of children toy)5.I think you readers did understood what I wrote. End of the torture session
I think both liaison and elision work here, describing different aspects of what we see. There is a liaison because in French, as viocjit says, a noun beginning with a vowel will be pronounced as if it has acquired a noun from the preceding word; it liaises with that word. At the same time the preceding word loses its own vowel; an elision.
My French is very poor, but I have been fortunate in having opportunities to learn some idioms of the language. Thank you, viocjit, for explaining "Appeler quelqu'un par des noms d'oiseaux". 
Don't mention it ! I like to share my knowledge about my mother tongue. Share knowledge is a way to create bridges between humans.
When these knowledge are about languages it is making a bridge of contact and contact can allow us to avoid conflicts.
I hope a day we will see a language to unify all humans even if they will keep theirs native tongues.
I hope a day we will see an European state that will be a step toward a World state.
If there are a day an European state
(An unified language would be necessary even if each people keep its local languages. Esperanto or a similar one seem to me the language we need) it would certainly not happens in my lifetime
(I'm in my 20's) but I hope as a human , European in the context of European civilization , Westerner as western world is a subset of European civilization , Citizen of European Union conformely to Maastricht Treaty , Citizen of French Republic conformely to law of French Republic that I will live enough to see that during my lifetime and join the crowd in the streets to celebrate this event if I'm not too old and in good health.
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