Any object or activity can be rendered alluring, exotic and downright dashing with the right infusion of foreign words.
I was in Alaska over the Memorial Day weekend, wearing out my hiking boots tramping up and down that wild and wonderful state. I saw many an impressive sight in those mountains, but foremost among them was the deep blue ice of the Portage Glacier. I could wax eloquent about the glacier itself, but what struck me first, before I even laid eyes on it, was the name. For a state as overtly nationalistic as Alaska, it sure seems like there are a lot of French words in their names.
Both Portage and Glacier are derived from French roots — glacier from the word for ice and portage from the word for carrying things around. I guess the onerous job of picking up your boat from a river, hauling it over ice and rock in freezing cold, and putting it down on the other side, becomes a bit more palatable if you have a pretty French word for it. Especially if you have to repeat the whole process a few miles downstream. Saying “I spent the whole day portaging” definitely makes it sound like you were doing something worthwhile with your time.
In fact, almost any object or activity can be rendered alluring, exotic, and downright dashing with the right infusion of foreign words. Consider the humble coffee with cream. You could walk into any diner and order it as such, but on the other hand you could call it a café au lait, and pay an extra dollar for the privilege of imbibing some highbrow culture with your caffeine. If you’re throwing a party, you could start things off with some chips and dip and invite forever the scorn and disdain of your guests. Or you could serve up the self-same chips as hors d’oeuvres, and instantly elevate your dinner to the rarefied heights of haute cuisine. With a bit of chutzpah, you could even pile up some chopped broccoli, call it crudités, and delude your guests, at least momentarily, into considering it edible.
It isn’t all as simple as it seems. There are some ground rules to be observed when it comes to garnishing your vocabulary with the exotic. The first rule is that only some languages work at this. Latin is best, French is good, Spanish and Italian are acceptable, and Czech is to be avoided at all costs. The second rule is that like all good garnishing, one should use these verbal flourishes with a sparing hand. For example, instead of using the odd umlaut or accent in your writing, if you were to make out the entire thing in French, you would be accused of being boring, pretentious, perhaps even French. This is best avoided, since it is an accusation that few, if any, truly recover from. Moderation is a worthy quality to strive for in all things, but it is absolutely de rigueur when it comes to verbal adornment. After all, when you’re working with a very potent spice, all it takes is just a pinch. N’est-ce pas?
(Papi Menon is a writer and technologist based in San Francisco)
