Herb - Now Aluminum

[Amanda Geist]

montims:
while we're ranting...
How on earth did "chaise longue" become "chaise lounge" in America? At
first, I thought it was just a common seller's spelling error, like the
greengrocer's apostrophe, but I've heard it pronounced as lounge in tv
programmes and furniture commercials. It doesn't even make sense that
way...

Amanda now:

It's a standard linguistic process (I think it's "back formation"?), and
it's what happens when a word is imported from another language. Users don't
recognize the import, so they substitute a word they do know. In this case,
"lounge" made sense-you sit on the thing, after all-so it went through the
linguistic change. It's not to the point where that's the accepted spelling,
but I think it is a common accepted pronunciation.

Similar: the English word "burgle" is a back-formation from the import
"burglar."  English speakers thought it sounded like the words they form
with "-er" as the doer of an activity, and so they figured what burglars
must do is burgle. We say it facetiously with "buttle" for butlers, too.

~Amanda



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