Re: fillet/filet [WAS: How do I pronounce "joie de vivre"?]

On Sep 22, 2:38 am, t...@xxxxxxxxxx (Donna Richoux) wrote:
mb <azyth...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

The fish is certainly English.
The citizenship status of "filet" is doubtful at that time (spelling
not normalized yet; any other signs?)

Sorry, I really don't know what you're getting at. By "spelling not
normalized" you seem to be asking about the history of the other
spelling "fillet" which is not what I looked into.

One quick-and-easy way to be sure of adoption is a spelling normalized
to the target language phonology. Like fillet.
Not a necessary conclusion in English, of course, so if it's negative
it remains unknown.

I also don't know how to distinguish, historically, between a new or
unusual word, on one hand, and "one of doubtful citizenship status" on
the other. It's not like they came with identity cards. All I can think
of is that a word thought of as French standing in English text is
quite likely to be italicized, and I did not see that in those examples.

In order to italicize one has to know a lot about a word. Unlikely,
considering the level of the writers.

If over the years, the word is kept in English usage, it is English. If
it drops by the wayside, it isn't.

Fillay sure is by now, as a pretentious relative of fillet. I was
asking about the mid-1800s where its use was relatively new, generally
part of an all-French terminology in a technical field where terms
used to be French or Italian, and it didn't carry written clues.

But, hey, as I said a few years back, I'm old enough to remember some
uncertainty and controversy over the word and its pronunciation, enough
so that, starting in the 1970s, I asked McDonalds for "a fish sandwich"
rather than try to say "Filet-O-Fish".

Good. Anyone parroting the seller's stupid cutesified advertising
names ought to be shot. Like those idiots who order a medium coffee by
calling it grahn-day even when there is a larger size.

....
That is the time of use as is by people who knew the language, not
necessarily the time of borrowing.

I'm lost again. You think that everyone who used French cooking terms
spoke fluent French? Those weren't hits on pages written entirely in
French, these were pages written in English, with some French terms --
borrowed.

By people who knew either the language or the technical language of
cookery. Which are 2 of the ways how "borrowings" usually start (by
the way, when is payback time and what's the interest rate?). Other
mechanisms, like use instead of existing Engl. word by people
unfamiliar with the source language, could be excluded considering the
period and the dominant technical terminology of the time.

.

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