Implacable

Because I am always planning group ballet trips (more on those here), I spend a lot of time reading reviews on tripadvisor.com, and am often entertained by the spelling mistakes and malapropisms I find there.

My favourite so far has been "All we got for breakfast was ONE BEAGLE!!!"

 But I recently came across another one:

"The service is implacable while friendly (including when one travels with kids)"

What they meant (I hope!) was "impeccable."

"Impeccable" comes from the late Latin impeccābilis,  from the negative prefix im- + peccāre to sin. The word originally meant "incapable of sinning", but has been weakened to "faultless; in accordance with the highest standards". 

"Implacable", on the other hand, comes from the same word that gave us "placate" and means "Unable to be appeased or placated" or "Unable to be stopped; relentless". The words that are found most frequently with "implacable" are very rarely positive: enemy (overwhelmingly most frequent), foe, hatred, hostility, and so on. 

Of course, I suppose the service in a hotel COULD be described as implacable, but only if you have the misfortune to turn up at this hotel:


https://youtu.be/tcliR8kAbzc

You may be surprised to learn that the original pronunciation of "implacable" was "im PLAY ka bull". But this gradually shifted to "im PLACKA bull". Vestiges of these pronunciation shifts can be seen in the root word "placate".

In British English it is pronounced "pluh KATE"

In the US it is pronounced "PLAY kate" or "PLACK ate". 

In Canada, typically, we have all three pronunciations, in the following order of frequency, according to the Canadian Oxford Dictionary:

"pluh KATE",  "PLAY kate", "PLACK ate"

I am not aware of ever having heard "PLACK ate", but some people in our pronunciation surveys must have said it or it wouldn't be there.

What do you say? 


For another entertaining malapropism, see this post:
http://katherinebarber.blogspot.ca/2016/06/a-mistake-you-really-dont-want-to-make.html
  Not a big ballet fan but like to travel? Why not check out my "Wine, food, sightseeing, and a bit of ballet trip to Bordeaux and Toulouse" in July 2017. I promise our hotels are not like Fawlty Towers! More info here:
 http://toursenlair.blogspot.ca/2016/06/food-wine-sightseeingand-ballet-trip.html

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"Hockey mom" makes it into Oxford English Dictionary

I bet the Stonewall, Manitoba (pop. 4536) Interlake Spectator never expected it would be quoted in the Oxford English Dictionary! But there it is, in the new entry for "hockey mom" (part of the dictionary's latest quarterly update). 

Here's the earliest evidence the lexicographers found for this term:

1956 Lethbridge (Alberta) Herald 22 Feb. 7/5 (caption) Proud hockey mom... Mrs. Alice Richard beams as she holds a picture of her two famed sons, hockey stars Maurice and Henri.

followed by

1984 Stonewall (Manitoba) Interlake Spectator 9 May 22/3 To be a hockey mom..means you do everything moms do plus drive to the rink, work at the rink, and watch games and practices at the rink.

Of course, "hockey mom/hockey mother" has been in the Canadian Oxford Dictionary for almost twenty years now, along with many other "hockey" compounds that the OED hasn't got around to yet: hockey bag, hockey gloves, hockey jacket, hockey socks, hockey tape, and so on.

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Do not mispronounce this!

It's Canada Day! Let us look at a Canadianism and how to pronounce it. 

This is "poutine":

Poutine. Do not pronounce like...

I will understand if you non-Canadians are mystified by the ingredients, which are french fries, cheese curds, and gravy. (Acadians in the Maritime Provinces have another kind of poutine, which is a dumpling made of grated and mashed potatoes with pork in the middle. Theirs is the older version of "poutine".)  Even my devotion to real-world research for the Canadian Oxford Dictionary could not persuade me to sample the Quebecois poutine, but it is quite popular with Canadians. 

The ultimate origin of this word beyond Canadian French is uncertain. It is probably derived from various similar words in many French dialects, and influenced by the English word "pudding" (which has a fairly disgusting etymology we'll get into some other time).

The story behind the concoction is that Fernand Lachance, a snack bar owner in Warwick, Quebec (pronounced WAR wick, by the way), when asked by a customer in 1957 to combine fries and cheese in a bag, told him it would be a "maudite poutine" (a hell of  a mess).  But the combination and the word stuck, and made its way into Canadian English starting in the 1980s. You can now buy poutine at Burger Kings across Canada.  Apparently a poutine stand has also just opened at Disney World. Here's the "nutrition" information for a serving of poutine, should you wish to be flabbergasted (not to mention flabby, if you actually eat it):

• Calories 800

• Protein  30g

• Carbohydrates  68g

• Sugar  2g

• Fat  45g

• Saturated Fat  17g

• Trans Fat 1.5g

• Cholesterol  95mg

• Sodium 2860mg

Concerns about health aside, though, the really important thing is not to mispronounce this word. It is pronounced "pooTEEN". But many Canadians have vague memories from their school French lessons that consonants at the ends of French words are silent. (They are sometimes, but not when followed by an "e".) Armed with this little-learning-is-a-dangerous-thing, they bravely order "poo TANG" (with a nasal "a" vowel).

Unfortunately this sounds like the French word putain (whore), ultimately derived from the Latin putidus (stinking, rotten, fetid).

...Putain

Please do not order a putain when you are at Burger King!

Another entertaining thing about "poutine" is that in French, "Poutine" is also the spelling for Vladimir Putin's surname. It always cracks me up when I read headlines in Quebecois newspapers like "Le pari risqué de Poutine" (Putin's risky gamble).

Although maybe they were talking about the risky gamble of eating poutine!

un maudit Poutine

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Hebrew and Yiddish words in English and afternoon tea! July 12. Signup deadline July 5. It's a lot of fun, and very informative. More details here: 
http://katherinebarber.blogspot.ca/p/speaking-engagements.html
 
Did you know you can hire Wordlady to enliven your meetings? I can talk entertainingly about the words related to almost any subject. See here for more.

COMING THIS FALL! My ever-popular Rollicking Story of the English Language course. REGISTRATION NOW OPEN AND SPACE IS LIMITED. More info here: http://katherinebarber.blogspot.ca/p/history-of-english-language-courses.html
 
P.S. If you find the English language fascinating, you might enjoy regular updates about English usage and word origins from Wordlady. Receive every new post delivered right to your inbox! SUBSCRIPTION IS FREE! You can either:
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