Finch Smith
Features Writer
12:00 AM 19th October 2024
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Opinion
We’ve All Been Saying “Denim” Wrong — Technically
Serge de Nîmes. Photo credit: Kranich17
Ok, put down your pitchforks! Allow me to explain.
Denim, as we know it, was first produced in the late 17th century. The word 'denim' comes from the phrase 'serge de Nîmes' — referring to serge fabric made in the prefecture of Nîmes, France (pronounced 'Neem').
Following this, we must conclude:
A. It’s not pronounced 'denim' — it’s actually 'deneem' (from 'de Nîmes').
B. The emphasis is on the wrong syllable; it’s not 'DE-neem', it’s actually 'de-NEEM'.
Following this line of logic, you could argue that we say 'jeans' wrong, too!
The word 'jeans' is theorised to have arisen from 'Gênes' — pronounced 'zhahn'. 'Gênes' is the French word for Genoa, the birthplace of jean fabric (which, confusingly, is different to denim).
So, historically speaking, it’s not pronounced 'denim jeans', but actually 'de-NEEM zhans'!
Does saying it that way make you the fabric equivalent of that one guy who over-pronounces foreign food names while ordering at a restaurant? Yes. Is it fun to do, though? Also yes.
Hold onto your jour-ts, we’re not even halfway.
La munition. Photo credit: mscanland66
A surprising number of words in English are misheard from other languages — take 'ammunition'.
'Ammunition', arriving in our language in the late 16th century, is actually a mishearing of the French phrase 'la munition' - as 'l’amunition'.
Another is 'apron', brought about from the Old French 'a naperon' becoming 'an aperon'.
This phenomenon is known as re-bracketing — words are divided differently, creating new words, prefixes, and suffixes.
The most famous example is the word 'burger'.
Photo credit: JRMartins
The humble hamburger has its origins in immigrants to New York from Hamburg, Germany. The word itself, hamburger, pretty much means 'from Hamburg' — literally, 'Hamburg + er'.
However, people understood it to be 'ham + burger' - and so, the word was re-bracketed.
This created a new standalone word in the form of 'burger' — meaning a burger with cheese was now a cheeseburger and so forth (though I think it’s more fun to pretend they were brought over from the village of Cheeseburg).
For me, however, the most interesting example of re-bracketing has got to be 'helicopter'.
Photo credit: PIRO4D
For the longest time, I thought that helicopter was composed of the words 'heli' and 'copter'. The truth, however, is that 'helicopter' is actually comprised of the words 'helico' (meaning 'spiral') and 'pter' (meaning 'wing').
This means words like '
helipad' and 'gyro
copter' are re-brackets - unbelievable!
This also means that, since 'pteron' is pronounced 'teron', one could argue the P in 'helicopter' is silent. For that reason, you might feel tempted to pronounce it as 'helico-ter' - but I advise against it in the strongest terms, for the consequences would be pterrible.