French Letters and the English Canon

Desperate for le mot juste? Tortured by l'esprit de l'escalier? This little book is a chef d'oeuvre to guide you through the embarras de richesse of words and phrases borrowed into English from the French. English is the richest language in the world - throughout history it has assimilated words from other lands - and has a word for almost everything, but still we pilfer words and phrases from the French. Boudoir n. a lady's sitting or dressing-room, often today wrongly used to denote a bedroom. In fact, a boudoir, derived from the French bouder - to pout or sulk - means a "sulking room", a place where a woman may, and therefore quite reasonably does, engage in prolonged emotional blackmail in considerable comfort. In common English usage since 1777. Sometimes French is thought to protect children and servants from Saxonic bluntness. Sometimes it is (wrongly) thought to prove artistic or intellectual credentials or refinement. Sometimes it is simply camp. Just occasionally, it fulfils a purpose which English cannot. In this robust, funny and well-researched guide, novelist and food-writer Mark Daniel gathers together and dissects these cross-channel migrants, with often surprising results. Whether you simply love language and its history, aspire to recherche prestige or simply want to annoy that pretentious, arriviste poseur who uses French phrases where an English one would have served, then this is the book for you...