From Clothing to Couture: How French Brought 'Class' to English | Peter Sokolowski
French words that we use in English might seem fancy—like cuisine or couture. But these borrowings are only the more recent French invaders into our vocabulary since the Norman Conquest. In English we can make subtle distinctions every day with synonyms like brotherhood and fraternity or deep and profound, but why is the crime called murder but the accusation called homicide? Waves of French and Latin words over the centuries tell much more than a linguistic story: they are also a map of how we identify class and privilege in the words we use every day.
Advanced Level, All editors, Words and Language
Peter Sokolowski is Editor at Large at Merriam-Webster. He has written definitions for many of Merriam-Webster’s dictionaries, is active as a blogger, podcaster, and speaker on language, and has served as pronouncer for spelling bees worldwide. He was named among TIME's 140 Best Twitter Feeds of 2013.