I was pleasantly surprised and amused by the enthusiastic response to my previous post on cacoepy, “Le Mot Juiced” (with apologies to Flaubert, above.) I heard from friends, family and former colleagues from all corners of the globe, what one might erroneously call “le tout monde.” I guess it has to do with the fact that we all have similar pet peeves when it comes to language, nest pas? A few wrote to quibble. An old pal of mine from college days pointed out that it is pointless to try and recreate the peculiar nasal inflection of certain French words such as Cannes and Caën with simple English equivalents such as “can” or “Cahn.” Il a raison, within reason, yet I was merely using the English terms as guideposts.

Another wrote to explain that the dots over the “e” in Moët are not an umlaut. The French do not use umlauts. It is a “trema,” a Gallic diaeresis (which sounds like a dreadful disease). As he explained, “umlauts are Germanic. Tremas are French (and perhaps used in other languages). He apologized for being “persnickety,” but I told him there’s nothing wrong with being right. I quickly corrected it.

Another ancien ami pointed out that it isn’t kosher to compare “grenouille” to “oeil” since the former has the double “l” sound at the end, plus that tricky stressed “e”. But I shot back, with some orgeuil, that I only said that the two were similar, not identical twins. I’m now giving him the evil eye.

Most people wrote me to suggest other annoying examples of mispronounced French words. The trema fellow offered “concierge” which the woman at his front desk pronounces without the “ge” at the end, as “concier.” An editrix reminded me of “liqueur” which some pseudophones pronounce as “lee-cure.” I have to agree with her that that abomination is enough to drive one to drink. Same with the word “voilà ” which too often is turned into the very ugly sounding “wah-la.” The French do know how to enunciate a “v”, so why the “w” sound? It’s especially grating since the French alphabet does not really include “w” except in the odd loan word such as “wagon-lit.”

Several people criticized the tendency of some folks to say “Vichysoi” instead of “Vichyssoise,” but as a worldly-wise poet friend of mine pointed out, that is not even a real French dish since it was invented by a French chef at Delmonico’s (above) here in the good ol’ U.S. of A (although, as I’ve discovered, even that urban legend is a matter of fierce debate). On that note, I might add that some unprepared people say “restauranteur” when what they mean to say is “restaurateur.” But that’s nitpicking to the “n”th degree.

Another kind soul reminded me of “mem-wah” instead of “memoir” and indicated that John Malkovich pronounces it that way in the latest Coen Bros flick, Burn After Reading. Thank God, it’s not a film noir. I was more worried if Coen has a trema. One must avoid such conneries, although being John Malkovich allows one the privilege of saying whatever one feels like without fear of recrimination.

I was disappointed that no one thought to mention “ménage” as in “ménage á trois.” It is common in some circles to use this French word as a flip shorthand for a “three-way.” But ménage on its own merely means a household, or living arrangement. Without the “á trois” it is not the slightest bit risqué. (Noël Coward, avec trema, and the Lunts, below, in Design For Living.)

My discussion of “lingerie” induced one colleague to send in “beige” which is the bugaboo of purists everywhere. But as far as I can recall only Diana Vreeland pronounced it correctly as “behge” rather than the more common “bayge.” But what do you expect from someone who preferred being called “Dee-ahnne-ah” rather than “Dye-anna,” although those truly in-the-know said “Dee-ahnne” as in Diane de Poitiers. She was always just Mrs. Vreeland to me. As far as I’m concerned Diana Vreeland could say any word in whatever “façon” she preferred. Who else could get away with making “allure” roll off her tongue like an exotic, five-syllable word?

The end result of all this sturm und drang over misused language (a tempête in a théière?) is that my article got picked up by the Huffington Post and thereby has reached an ever wider, if not greater, audience. You can read it (in a slightly abridged version from the original on my blog) ici. (I chickened out on Cannes and Moët.) I can’t wait to see what other flaming examples of le mot juiced come out of the boiserie.