A.W.A.D. - Words from Other Languages with Poor Pronunciation

with Anu Garg

The great humorist Mark Twain once said, "In Paris they simply stared when I spoke to them in French; I never did succeed in making those idiots understand their language." Well, that's the pitfall of learning a foreign language away from its natural habitat. We might become proficient in the grammar but there is never a certainty about the nuances of the language.

No matter. Some of the terms we borrow from French have now become part of the English language. They often help us convey a whole idea succinctly just in a word or two. This week we'll look at five of them.

A note about pronunciation: When we adopt words from other languages, we don't always adopt their pronunciations as well. So the pronunciation suggestions given with these words reflect how they're generally pronounced in English.
bon ton
PRONUNCIATION:(bon ton)
MEANING: noun:
1. Good form or style
2. Something regarded as fashionably right
3. High society

ETYMOLOGY: From French, literally, good tone

moue
PRONUNCIATION: (moo)
MEANING: noun: Pout; grimace

ETYMOLOGY: From French moue (pout), from Middle French moe

au fait
PRONUNCIATION: (o FAY)
MEANING: adjective: Being well-informed or skillful in something
ETYMOLOGY: From French, literally "to the fact", from Latin facere (to make or do)

clou
PRONUNCIATION: (kloo)
MEANING: noun: A major point of interest, or a central idea
ETYMOLOGY: From French clou (nail), from Latin (clavus)

pied-a-terre
PRONUNCIATION: (pee-ay-duh-TARE)
plural pieds-a-terre (pee-ay-duh-TARE)
MEANING: noun: A place of lodging for temporary or secondary use

ETYMOLOGY: From French pied-à-terre (foot on the ground)

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Interesting Aftermath a From Season Five of "MasterChef"

Image
Do I agree with this? You will have to read it first and decide for yourself. I had long since made up my mind before finding this article. MasterChef Season 5 Fixed: Courtney Lapresi Won Finale After Getting Preferential Treatment – Former Stripper Favoritism BY  STORMY ELIZABETH  ON SEPTEMBER 23, 2014 "They say if you can’t take the heat, you should get out of the kitchen, but what if you like it hot? If you’ve been watching  MasterChef this season 5 , you may have noticed that one contestant in particular seems to  be “winning” challenges  when her dishes don’t seem to be quite up to it.  Courtney Lapresi  has been billed as an “aerial dancer” on the show. So what exactly is that, you ask? It’s a fancy word for stripper. You may term what she does as burlesque, but nekked is nekked and she takes off her  clothes  when she dances, so you have to call them as you see them. Plus is it really...
Read more

The Longairc-Green Family

This is a family that was on Nanny 911 , the precursor to Supernanny , which airs on Wednesday nights. While Supernanny is a better production and leaves out some of the dopey American-isms of stupidity (such as the opening scene with a much older nanny head whose television showing the family and their issues turns around into a painting on the wall), this show has its value. These families are clueless or don't bother to try and definitely need help. This family is an exception in that the mother couldn't care less what the monsters do and will do anything to mollify them. The father is more consistent and definitely takes a much more disciplinary stance, but the mother undermines it at every step of the way. The two boys are so unbelievably rude, I'd've killed them where they stood. The little girl only wanted a moment of attention and was not doing anything negative, and the mother was awful to her. The nanny, Nanny Stella, spent the first day observing. When she s...
Read more

Shocking!

Image
I always open my day at work by starting up my various programs that I'll bounce back and forth between throughout the insanity that is my normal workday. And they are always in the same order: Internet Outlook Microsoft Excel Microsoft Word The timekeeping program, GenPro, is always running. This is not me being unbelievably anal or just a little OCD, this is logic. I know excatly where everything is. It's just good organisational skills. When I open Outlook it is almost entirely for the e-mail. Yes, I do know how to use all of Outlook (well, 80% of it, any way, but since I use my belovèd Franklin Covey Time Management system (the physical book, not the electronic solution), I only use Outlook for e-mail. What is so shocking, you may ask? Be patient, I'm getting to that. I open the Internet and the default page is Wikipedia, in English. I happen to love that site and skim over whatever interesting things it may have, such as: Today's Featured Article The word thou was...
Read more