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The disappearance of boa. A case of semantic pejoration in Vietnamese, or when the French tip is reserved for the bar hostess During French colonization in Vietnam, language and community contacts between France and Vietnam led to the evolution of language use and the creation of neologisms. The current article attempts to analyze the borrowing of the word pourboire by the Vietnamese language. We describe its phonetic and semantic development within the borrowing language and how pourboire resulted in boa, with the meaning of 'salary paid to a bar hostess'. We wish to show that the eventual dying out of that loanword might be linked to its semantic pejoration. To carry out our analysis, we have taken into account both the perception of the neologism by Vietnamese speakers and the social pressures that control its usage.