Émigrés: French words that turned English

The fascinating continuing history of French words that have entered the English language—and that reveal the fertile but fraught relationship between English- and French-speaking cultures across the worldEnglish has borrowed more words from French than from any other modern foreign language. French...

Ausführliche Beschreibung

Gespeichert in:
Bibliographische Detailangaben
1. Verfasser: Scholar, Richard (VerfasserIn)
Format: Elektronisch E-Book
Sprache:English
Veröffentlicht: Princeton ; London Princeton University Press [2020]
Schlagworte:
Online-Zugang:BSB01
FAB01
FAW01
FCO01
FHA01
FKE01
FLA01
UBG01
UPA01
Volltext
Zusammenfassung:The fascinating continuing history of French words that have entered the English language—and that reveal the fertile but fraught relationship between English- and French-speaking cultures across the worldEnglish has borrowed more words from French than from any other modern foreign language. French words and phrases—such as à la mode, ennui, naïveté, and caprice—lend English a certain je-ne-sais-quoi that would otherwise elude the language. Richard Scholar examines the continuing history of untranslated French words in English and asks what these words reveal of the fertile but fraught relationship that England and France have long shared and that now entangles English- and French-speaking cultures all over the world.Émigrés demonstrates that French borrowings have, over the centuries, "turned" English in more ways than one. From the seventeenth-century polymath John Evelyn’s complaint that English lacks "words that do so fully express" the French ennui and naïveté, to George W. Bush’s purported claim that "the French don’t have a word for entrepreneur," this unique history of English argues that French words have offered more than the mere seasoning of the occasional mot juste. They have established themselves as "creolizing keywords" that both connect English speakers to—and separate them from—French. Moving from the realms of opera to ice cream, the book shows how migrant French words are never the same again for having ventured abroad, and how they complete English by reminding us that it is fundamentally incomplete.At a moment of resurgent nationalism in the English-speaking world, Émigrés invites native Anglophone readers to consider how much we owe French and why so many of us remain ambivalent about the migrants in our midst
Beschreibung:1 Online-Ressource (253 Seiten) Illustrationen
ISBN:9780691209586
DOI:10.1515/9780691209586

Es ist kein Print-Exemplar vorhanden.

Fernleihe Bestellen Achtung: Nicht im THWS-Bestand! Volltext öffnen