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May 25, 2015
This week’s themeTerms borrowed from French This week’s words politesse laissez-faire de rigueur soi-disant laissez-aller Enjoy A.Word.A.Day? Here are ways you can support this work: . Upgrade to premium subs. . Send a gift subscription . Become a sponsor . Buy our books . Contribute Thank you! 
A.Word.A.Day
with Anu GargThe head of a Chinese company has taken 6,400 of his employees to France for a vacation. Chances are your employer isn’t going to charter dozens of planes and take you and your colleagues on a French fling. But don’t lose heart. We’re bringing France to you, in the form of words from French. This week we’ll feature words from French that are now part of the English language. And we’ll do it for a whole week -- those employees went for only four days.
Obligatory note about the pronunciation: The indicated pronunciation is how
a term would be pronounced in English. Once a word is adopted into a language,
it usually plays by its new language’s rules.
politesse
PRONUNCIATION:
(pol-i-TES, po-lee-)
MEANING:
noun: Formal politeness or courtesy.
ETYMOLOGY:
From Old French politesse (cleanness, polished state), from Italian politezza
(polish, smoothness), from Latin polire (to polish). Ultimately from the
Indo-European root pel- (skin or hide), which also gave us pelt, pillion, and
film. Earliest documented use: 1683.
USAGE:
“How did the loud, fast-talking James Haskell fit in amid the politesse
of Japanese culture, with its bowing and eye-lowering?” Jonathan McEvoy; James Haskell, Written Off as a Loudmouth, Travelled the Globe to Transform His Game; Mail on Sunday (London, UK); Mar 1, 2015. A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
An institution is the lengthened shadow of one man. -Ralph Waldo Emerson, writer and philosopher (25 May 1803-1882)
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