"Ticket", "spleen", "jeans" ... Appearances are often deceptive. These words that we use and that we sometimes slap because we believe them English, are in reality French. As often, languages travel and play ping-pong. While the UK today gives us plenty of words, in the past we have also sent it a lot of terms and expressions. To the point that we ended up forgetting their origin in France ...
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Spleenetics is artistic
If Baudelaire did not invent it, he surely gave it his finest letters in the literary world. Anyone who speaks of "spleen" thinks of the writer's Paris. However, long before him, the word was found in Diderot, who noted it in an original way: "spline". Should we be surprised? The word, which is pronounced exactly the same, is borrowed from English spleen , indicates Le Trésor de la langue française.
It has been documented since the 14th century, then more specifically to speak of the spleen as the seat of melancholy. Hence its use to "designate excessive manifestations of mood, and in particular, since the end of the 17th century, a state of depression, melancholy or a sickly gloom" . Despite its English sounding, the term is "issued directly, or through the intermediary of Old French esplen" , or the "rate" as it is read in the Dictionary of Middle French.
Fallen into oblivion, the word "spleenetics" designated the individual suffering from the spleen or, figuratively speaking, from melancholy. We still note it (and of course) in Baudelaire: "Under the spleenetic dome of the sky, the feet plunged in the dust of a ground as desolate as this sky." But also at Lautréamont: "I slowly lifted my spleenetic eyes, surrounded by a large bluish circle."
A pony, a pony
In 1827, Stendhal used the word “pony” to refer to the small horse. He is followed by Chateaubriand, who employs him twenty years later. Is this a spelling mistake? It is found at the beginning of the 19th century written "ponii" and "pony" . It is then a borrowing from English attested since 1659. According to the IXth edition of the Dictionary of the French Academy, the word pony would itself be "probably derived from pouleney, an alteration of the Middle French poulenet, little foal ”.
The historical dictionary of the French language reminds us that there was a time when we wrote "ponet" to describe the said horse. And if this masculine word disappeared, it was not the case of its feminine equivalent. The "pony" can always refer to "the female pony" . We meet it for example under the pen of Colette who used it figuratively in the sense of "young girl, woman". A pony, a pony, a dada, a dadais ...
From "bloudgine" to "jean (s)"
"John, is said particularly of those who have unfaithful wives and suffer their disorders . " Obviously, these "jeans" mentioned in the Dictionary of Furetière (1690) is pronounced like the first name is not in the English "djinn", the evil genius! However, “blue jeans” draws its etymological thread well from French.
The lexicographer Alain Rey enlightens us in his Historical Dictionary of the French Language (Le Robert). The word "jean" represents "the altered transcription according to the English pronunciation of old French Janne (s), corresponding to modern French Genoa, from which this canvas was imported" . By going through the origins of the word, we therefore learn that the “form with -s, the most common in the United States, is not a plural, but the reflection of the French spelling Jannes, Genoa” .
In the 16th century, in English, the name is used as an ellipse of "jene fustyan" , that is to say "fountain of Genoa" . Its use spread in the 19th century, the thesaurus still notes, to describe a “garment cut in this fountain” . In the twentieth century, in France, we wear pants but we hesitate as to its pronunciation. What should we say: "bloudgine", "bloudjinnes", "blougines" ? Nothing of the sort. It is finally and simply the "jeans" which, by truncation, ends up being essential.
From "jeans" to "gin"
And speaking of "jeans", what about "gin"? Does the drink find its sources in a fountain in Genoa? The correspondence is tempting, however, according to Le Trésor de la langue française, the word is borrowed from English gin , abbreviation of geneva first designating a Dutch drink. It is derived from the Dutch genever, jenever , itself related to the old French genevre , that is to say “genièvre”, from the Latin juniperus “juniper”. Ordered on its own, the "gin" qualifies a grained eau-de-vie flavored with juniper. Embellished with the word “fizz”, gin designates a cocktail made from gin and refreshed lemon juice. Health!
Have a ticket
Cinema, cash desk, metro or bus ... The ticket is a daily essential. Wherever we go, whatever we do, this little piece of paper is presented to us. But where does it come from? According to Le Trésor de la langue française, the ticket comes from the old French which is the origin of "label". It is borrowed from the French means "estiquet", that is to say "small sign".
Is it recent? In English, the ticket is attested from the 16th century in the sense of "small written document, note, ticket" hence "ticket attesting to a right, especially a right to a service or an entrance fee" and "attestation guaranteeing payment ” . According to the Historical Dictionary of the French language, the French word is attested from the first half of the 19th century, in 1835 more precisely, in the sense of "rectangle of cardboard giving right to entry into a place" . It spread from the second half of the century, says Le Littré, "about the world of collecting entrance fees for the 1878 exhibition". Subsequently, and as history tells us, the “ticket” became that of “rationing” during the two great wars.
From now on, we have a “ticket” when we pay by credit card or when we take public transport. However, we can also have it when we like others ... Even if we say rather that we "have a touch" with someone. Finally, from ticket to key, as long as it is done with tact ...