When William the Conqueror arrived at Hastings in 1066, he brought a language that would spend the next three centuries ruling England. Today, nearly 30% of modern English vocabulary is directly French in origin — but the influence goes far deeper than borrowed words. It shapes every choice you make between help and aid, begin and commence, freedom and liberty.
The history of French and English is one of the great stories of how language, power, and culture interact over centuries. Understanding it makes you a sharper, more precise user of English — and a more informed learner of French. If this article has made you curious about the deep connections between these two languages, book a lesson today. Every time you say beef instead of cow, you are speaking a thousand years of history.
Purple bold = Advanced vocabulary
Green underline = Expressions & phrases
Teal dashed = Grammar points
There is a paradox buried in the phrase “pardon my French.” We use it to apologise for swearing — for crude, low, vulgar language. Yet for three hundred years after the Norman Conquest, French was the most prestigious language in England: the language of kings and courts, of law and literature, of anyone who wanted to be taken seriously. How did the most elevated tongue in the realm become associated with obscenity? And what does that reversal tell us about the extraordinary story of how French made English the language it is today?
On 14 October 1066, Harold II of England was killed at the Battle of Hastings — probably, though not certainly, by an arrow to the eye — and William, Duke of Normandy, became the most powerful man in England. He was crowned King of England on Christmas Day in Westminster Abbey, where the acclamation of the crowd was given in both English and French. That small bilingual moment was a harbinger of what was to come: for the next three centuries, England would be a country in which two languages rubbed up against each other every day, and the result of that friction was the English that you are reading now. Without the Norman Conquest — without that arrow, that Christmas crowning, and the linguistic upheaval that followed — the English language would be almost unrecognisable to a modern reader: closer to modern German or Dutch in its grammar and vocabulary, lacking the vast reservoir of French-derived words that give English its distinctive capacity to vary its register with precision. It is not an exaggeration to say that French is the most important foreign language in the history of the English language — and it has been shaping English far longer, and in far more ways, than most people realise.
The Norman Court: How French Became the Language of Power
William the Conqueror brought with him not just an army but an aristocracy: Norman French nobles who took over the great estates of England, replaced English bishops with Norman ones, and installed French as the language of government, law, and the court. By the end of William’s reign, writs that had been written in English were being written in Latin; by the time of his successors, the entire machinery of state — the parliament, the law courts, the royal household — operated in Norman French. French was the official language of England for more than 300 years. It was, as one historian has described it, the language of anyone in England who wanted to be taken seriously.
The social landscape this created was a diglossia: a situation in which two languages coexist in the same community but serve different functions — one used for high-status, formal, educated communication, and the other used for everyday domestic life. French was the prestige language: it was spoken by the aristocracy, written by clerics and lawyers, and heard in every court of law and royal council. English was the language of the commonality: of farmers and craftsmen, of market transactions and domestic conversation, of everything that happened below the level of power. The two groups were not entirely separate — Norman masters gave orders to English servants; merchants dealt across the language divide — but the general stratification was clear and it lasted for generations.
The most vivid illustration of this stratification is the famous animal/meat divide that Shakespeare’s near-contemporary Sir Walter Scott would later describe in Ivanhoe (1819). The animals that lived on the farm — ox, cow, calf, sheep, swine, deer — kept their Old English, Germanic names because they were tended by English-speaking serfs and peasants. But the meat that arrived at the Norman dinner table took French names: beef (from Old French boef), veal (from veau), mutton (from mouton), pork (from porc), venison (from venaison). The same object — the same animal — carried two names depending on whether you were looking at it standing in a field or lying on a plate: one name for the people who raised it and one for the people who ate it, and the language of the eaters was French. This is not a linguistic curiosity. It is a snapshot of the distribution of power in post-Conquest England, preserved in the lexicon of modern English to this day.
The Great French Inheritance: What English Borrowed and Why
Over the three centuries of Norman rule, and the subsequent centuries of English-French contact through trade, literature, and the continuing prestige of French culture, English absorbed French loanwords across virtually every domain of life. The borrowings were not random: they followed the contours of where French was used and English was not. In domains controlled by the French-speaking elite, English had no words because English speakers had no access to those domains; the words had to be borrowed from the people who did.
Law and Government
The law was conducted entirely in Law French for centuries; consequently, the lexicon of English law is substantially French to this day. Justice, judge, jury, attorney, plaintiff, defendant, verdict, appeal, crime, evidence, prison, parliament, government, sovereign, tax, treasury, nation, council, mayor, noble, prince, duke, countess, throne — all are French in origin. So are authority, obedience, command, lieutenant, sergeant, captain, soldier, and war itself. The English speaker who goes to court, serves on a jury, pays their taxes, elects a parliament, or reads about military campaigns is doing so, in large part, in a vocabulary that was imported from a language spoken by people who conquered their ancestors nearly a thousand years ago.
Religion and Intellect
The Church was the other great institution of medieval power, and its vocabulary in English carries heavy French and Latin influence. Prayer, sermon, charity, virtue, grace, salvation, devotion, piety, miracle, paradise, saint, clergy — all come from Old French or Latin through French. So do the great words of intellectual and philosophical life: reason, logic, philosophy, science, medicine, university, art, literature, poetry, music (in its technical sense). The Anglo-Saxon equivalents for most of these concepts either did not exist or were lost: English speakers in the medieval period borrowed the vocabulary of elevated thought because they were borrowing the ideas themselves — gaining access to a body of learning that had been conducted in French or Latin and that English, having been sidelined as a language of power for two centuries, had not developed the vocabulary to describe.
Food, Fashion, and the Pleasures of the Court
The words for refined pleasures are overwhelmingly French: cuisine, restaurant, menu, banquet, dessert, sauce, salad, pastry, biscuit. Fashion and style: fashion itself, costume, elegant, boutique, petite, chic. The arts: ballet, theatre, cinema, genre, oeuvre, critique, avant-garde, rendezvous, rapport. Architecture: palace, tower, chateau, castle (from Norman French castel), dungeon, chimney, porch. Even the word beautiful is French in origin. The pattern holds across all of these domains: wherever English speakers in the medieval period encountered luxury, sophistication, art, or power, they encountered it in French — and they took the words along with the things the words described.
Pad.org.tr, Loan Words and Synonyms: The French Influence on English Vocabulary (November 2025) — a linguistic analysis of the French and Germanic synonym pairs in English, examining how register differences between the two sets of words persist in modern usage and what they tell us about the social history of the language
The Register Revolution: How Choosing Between French and Germanic Words Still Signals Class
The most lasting and practically important consequence of the Norman Conquest for modern English speakers is not any specific borrowed word. It is the system of register — the ability to say the same thing at different levels of formality, precision, and social elevation — that the coexistence of French and Germanic vocabularies created. In most languages, you have one word for a concept and one register in which to use it. English, uniquely, often has two: one Germanic, one French, and the choice between them carries social meaning that dates back to the Norman court.
The Classic Pairs: Saxon Body, French Mind
Consider the following pairs, in which the first word is Old English (Germanic) and the second is French in origin:
help → aid / assist • begin → commence • buy → purchase • ask → demand / question • freedom → liberty • holy → sacred • holy man → saint • hearty → cordial • kingly → royal / regal • wedding → marriage • speak → articulate • smell → aroma / perfume • wish → desire • motherly → maternal • fatherly → paternal • yearly → annual • kingly → regal • dead → deceased • lively → vivacious • end → finish / conclude.
In each of these pairs, the Germanic word is the one you would use in casual speech, with a friend or a child, in informal writing, in a moment of genuine emotion; the French-derived word is the one you would use in a formal letter, a legal document, a speech, a job application, or a medical consultation. This is not a coincidence or an arbitrary convention. It is the direct inheritance of the medieval social structure in which French was the language of power and English was the language of the people. When you choose liberty over freedom, commence over begin, aid over help, or deceased over dead, you are, without knowing it, playing out a social drama that began on the fields of Hastings in 1066.
The Triplet: When Latin, French, and English All Survive
In some areas of English vocabulary, the conquest left not a pair but a triplet: three words for the same concept at three distinct levels of register, drawn from three different language layers. The most famous is the triad of words for asking: ask (Old English, informal), question (Old French, formal), interrogate (Latin via French, very formal or official). Similarly: begin / commence / initiate; holy / sacred / consecrated; kingly / royal / sovereign; house / mansion / residence; fear / terror / trepidation. The availability of these three-level registers is one of the things that makes English especially versatile as a literary and professional language: a writer can control the emotional temperature and social elevation of a sentence very precisely by choosing among the Germanic, French, and Latin options for the same concept, and the effect of moving between registers within a single passage can be used for humour, irony, pathos, or rhetorical impact.
Legal Doublets: The Law’s Redundant Pairs
One of the most distinctive artefacts of the French-English collision is the legal doublet — a phrase in which two near-synonymous words from different language traditions are joined by “and” to mean the same thing. The pairing was originally a practical necessity: Norman lawyers needed to be understood by English-speaking clients and vice versa, so they used both the French and the English word to ensure no confusion. Over centuries, the pairs fossilised into fixed phrases that the legal language preserved even when the distinction between the two words became meaningless.
The list of surviving legal doublets is remarkable: aid and abet (both mean to assist a wrongdoer; aid from French, abet from Old French abeter); will and testament (Old English + Latin through French); have and hold (both Old English, from wedding vows); rest, residue and remainder (a triplet, all roughly meaning what is left over); terms and conditions; cease and desist; null and void; part and parcel; each and every. Some pairs are one French, one English: breaking and entering; fit and proper. The legal doublet is not a stylistic flourish but a historical relic: it tells us that medieval lawyers were so uncertain their listeners shared their language that they said the same thing twice, in two different languages, to be safe — and those redundant pairings survived into modern contract law.
“The main legacy of these French loanwords is that they gave English a sophisticated way to manage register — the level of formality in communication. When a writer chooses the Germanic synonym, the tone is typically accessible, immediate, and informal. When they choose the French synonym, the tone becomes educated, abstract, or formal. This linguistic dualism is what makes English so uniquely rich.”
— Linguistic analysis of French loanwords in English — on how the simultaneous presence of French-derived and Germanic synonyms gives English its unique capacity to manage register, formality, and social signalling through vocabulary choice alone
The Decline: 1362, the Black Death, and the Return of English
French did not remain the official language of England indefinitely. Its decline was the result of a combination of political, demographic, and cultural forces that came together in the fourteenth century to restore English to its place at the centre of national life.
The political turning point was the loss of Normandy and most of England’s French territories to the French crown in the early thirteenth century. From that moment, the English-French nobility were forced to choose: they could be English or they could be French, but they could not comfortably be both. Many chose English, and with that choice came a new investment in the English language as the language of English identity.
The demographic turning point was the Black Death of 1348–1351, which killed between 30 and 50 percent of the English population. The catastrophic loss of labour empowered the English-speaking working class, whose skills were now in desperate demand. English-speaking labourers negotiated from a position of new strength; English became, for the first time in centuries, a language with economic power behind it.
The legal turning point came in 1362, with the Pleading in English Act — the Statute of Pleading — passed by Parliament under Edward III. The Act complained that because French was “much unknown in England,” the people had no knowledge of what was being said for or against them in the courts. It therefore required that all pleadings, debates, judgments, and proceedings in common law courts be conducted in English — an irony that has not been lost on historians: the statute banning French from the English courts was itself written in Law French, with the phrase trop desconue (too little known) appearing in the original text. The 1362 Parliament was also the first ever opened with a speech in English, marking the elevation of English from common vernacular to official language of national life.
The English Project, How 1362 Changed the Future of English (November 2025) — a historical account of the Pleading in English Act and its lasting effect on the development of English as a language of law, government, and national identity
“Pardon My French”: A Paradox in Six Words
We have now arrived at the central paradox of this article. French was the most prestigious language in medieval England: it was spoken by kings, written by lawyers, heard in churches and royal courts. So how did the phrase “pardon my French” come to mean excuse my swearing? The answer is one of the most illuminating stories in the history of the English language.
The phrase traces its origins to the early nineteenth century. Its earliest documented use appears in John Neal’s 1823 novel Randolph, where it is used literally: to excuse the use of the French phrase une fille perdue (a fallen woman) in an English context. A similar use appears in the 1830 edition of The Lady’s Magazine, where the phrase “excuse my French” excuses the term en bon point (plumpness) — a social euphemism for fatness that a speaker might deploy because the French sounds more delicate than the English. Eric Partridge, the great lexicographer of slang, documented “pardon my French” in his 1937 Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English as a standard apology for crude language, confirming its entrenchment in the century between its first appearances and his writing.
The transition from “excuse me for using French words” to “excuse my swearing” happened by a route that involves both the prestige and the resentment that French had always generated in England. On one hand, French words had long been used as euphemisms in English because French sounded more refined and less explicit than the Anglo-Saxon alternative: you could say lingerie where you might not say the English equivalent; you could say risqué where you might not say indecent; you could say toilette where you would not say lavatory. The euphemistic use of French was not just a personal habit but a social convention — French carried an aura of sophistication that softened the impact of what might otherwise be considered too direct or too crude.
On the other hand, the long history of English-French rivalry — the Norman Conquest, the Hundred Years’ War, the Napoleonic Wars — had created a tradition of attributing to the French anything that the English found distasteful, embarrassing, or morally dubious. Syphilis was called “the French pox” (the French called it “the Italian disease”; the Italians called it “the Spanish disease”). A condom was a “French letter” in English; the French called it a capote anglaise (English hood). Leaving a party without saying goodbye was “taking French leave” in English; the French called it filer à l’anglaise (to leave English-style). Each of these locutions reveals the same pattern: two neighbours who admire and resent each other in equal measure, each projecting onto the other the behaviours they find most embarrassing, as if the act of labelling something foreign neutralises the discomfort of acknowledging it at all.
“Pardon my French” is the product of both traditions at once. The phrase uses the euphemistic aura of French to soften the impact of a swear word (“what I just said is too sophisticated to be mere vulgarity”) while simultaneously deploying the anti-French tradition to imply that crude language is naturally at home in that tongue. The irony is complete: a phrase that began as a literal apology for using elevated, courtly French has become a standard excuse for its exact opposite.
French as the Language of Diplomacy: From Versailles to the United Nations
The influence of French on English was not only a matter of the Norman Conquest. For nearly three centuries after English regained its footing as the language of England, French remained the dominant language of European culture, scholarship, and diplomacy — and that dominance continued to shape English even as the two languages became more clearly distinguished.
From the seventeenth century onward, French was the lingua franca of European courts. Under Louis XIV (1643–1715), the Sun King, Versailles became the cultural capital of Europe and French became the language that any European ruler, diplomat, or person of culture was expected to speak. The significant treaties of this period were negotiated and written in French: the Treaty of Utrecht (1713), which settled the War of the Spanish Succession, was the first major international treaty to be composed in French; the Peace of Westphalia (1648) and the Congress of Vienna (1815) followed. To speak French in this period was not merely to communicate in a convenient common language: it was to signal membership in a cosmopolitan elite, to demonstrate that you had the education, the refinement, and the social standing to participate in the conversation of Europe.
The dominance of French as the language of diplomacy began to crack only after the First World War. The Treaty of Versailles (1919) was, by precedent, expected to be composed solely in French — but American President Woodrow Wilson insisted on an English version of equal standing. As one historian has noted, the French victory in the Great War was also, paradoxically, the first step in the decline of French as an international language: the entry of the United States as a global power tipped the scales in favour of English, and from that point the shift was only a matter of time. By the 1960s and 1970s, English had become the dominant language of international institutions, commerce, and science. French remained one of the six official languages of the United Nations, but it was no longer the first among them.
French in Modern English: What Survives and What Still Flows In
Today, French continues to shape English in two ways: through the vast inheritance of French-derived vocabulary already embedded in the language, and through a continuing stream of new borrowings from a language that English speakers still regard as the epitome of sophistication in specific domains.
The statistics are striking. According to the most careful etymological analyses of the English lexicon, French (including Anglo-Norman) accounts for approximately 28.3% of all English vocabulary — slightly more than Latin (28.2%) and significantly more than the Germanic languages that are theoretically English’s own family (25%). Nearly 60% of English vocabulary has roots in French or Latin. The irony of English’s position as a Germanic language — categorised by linguists alongside German, Dutch, and the Scandinavian languages — is that its vocabulary is, by a significant margin, more Romance than Germanic: a Germanic skeleton clothed in a Romance wardrobe, and that wardrobe was largely stitched together in the Norman court of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.
New French borrowings continue to arrive in English, typically in the domains where France is still regarded as the global authority. Cuisine, chêf, soufflé, entrée, cliché, faux pas, joie de vivre, déjà vu, esprit de corps, laissez-faire, résumé, bureaucrat, surveillance, sabotage (from workers throwing sabots — wooden shoes — into machinery): all entered English in the eighteenth, nineteenth, or twentieth centuries and are now treated as fully English words. Some, like cliché and faux pas, are so thoroughly absorbed that English speakers do not even notice they are speaking French; others, like soufflé and château, retain their accents and their unmistakably French identity, signalling that the thing they name belongs to a domain — cooking, wine, architecture — where France is still the reference point.
From the Norman Conquest to the Modern Lexicon
28.3% of English vocabulary is French in origin (including Anglo-Norman), according to the most careful etymological analysis of the English lexicon. French (28.3%) edges out Latin (28.2%) and significantly exceeds the Germanic languages that are theoretically English’s own linguistic family (25%). Nearly 60% of all English vocabulary has roots in French or Latin combined — meaning a Germanic language has become more Romance than Germanic in its word stock.
300 years: The length of time French was the official language of England after the Norman Conquest of 1066. French was the language of the royal court, Parliament, the law courts, and the Church until the Statute of Pleading in 1362 began the process of restoring English to official life — and even then, Law French persisted in the courts for centuries. The Statute of Pleading itself was written in Law French.
The animal/meat divide: Ox, cow, calf, sheep, swine, deer (Old English: tended by Anglo-Saxon serfs) → beef (from Old French boef), veal (veau), mutton (mouton), pork (porc), venison (venaison) (French: served at Norman dinner tables). The same animal carries two names: one for the people who raised it and one for the people who ate it.
Register pairs (Germanic → French): help/aid • begin/commence • buy/purchase • ask/demand • freedom/liberty • holy/sacred • kingly/royal • wedding/marriage • speak/articulate • dead/deceased • motherly/maternal • yearly/annual • wish/desire • end/conclude. In each case, the Germanic word = informal register; the French word = formal register. The choice dates to the social structure of Norman England.
Legal doublets: Aid and abet • will and testament • terms and conditions • cease and desist • null and void • part and parcel • each and every • rest, residue and remainder. Pairs of near-synonyms from different languages, joined by “and,” originally used to ensure understanding across the French-English language divide. They survive in modern contract law as linguistic relics of medieval multilingualism.
“Pardon my French”: 1823. First documented in John Neal’s novel Randolph as a literal apology for using French words. Evolved through the nineteenth century from literal apology for French vocabulary to figurative excuse for swearing, documented as standard slang by lexicographer Eric Partridge in 1937. The reversal reflects both the euphemistic aura of French and the long tradition of English-French cultural rivalry: “French leave,” “French pox,” “French letter” (English) vs. filer à l’anglaise, capote anglaise (French).
Diplomacy: French was the lingua franca of European diplomacy from the Treaty of Utrecht (1713) through the Congress of Vienna (1815) to the Treaty of Versailles (1919). Versailles was the first major treaty written in both French and English — the beginning of the end of French as the sole language of international power. French remains one of six official UN languages and is projected to be spoken by up to 590 million people worldwide by 2050 (OIF), with 90% of those speakers living in Africa.
| Domain | French-origin words in modern English | Old English / Germanic alternatives (where they exist) |
|---|---|---|
| Law & government | justice, judge, jury, attorney, plaintiff, defendant, verdict, appeal, crime, parliament, government, sovereign, tax, nation, council, mayor, noble, prince, duke, throne, lieutenant, sergeant | law (Old English lagu), king (Old English cyning), lord (Old English hlāford) |
| Food | beef, veal, mutton, pork, venison, cuisine, restaurant, menu, banquet, dessert, sauce, salad, pastry, biscuit, bacon | ox, cow, calf, sheep, swine, deer (Old English names for the live animals) |
| Register pairs | aid, assist, commence, purchase, demand, liberty, sacred, royal, marriage, deceased, maternal, annual, desire, conclude | help, begin, buy, ask, freedom, holy, kingly, wedding, dead, motherly, yearly, wish, end |
| Art & culture | ballet, theatre, genre, oeuvre, critique, avant-garde, renaissance, chateau, architecture, portrait, sculpture, music (technical) | play (Old English), song (Old English) |
| Emotions & mind | courage, emotion, passion, conscience, intelligence, reason, philosophy, sentiment, virtue, grace, charity, devotion | heart (Old English heort), mind (Old English gemynd), love (Old English lufu) |
| Modern borrowings | faux pas, déjà vu, joie de vivre, esprit de corps, laissez-faire, résumé, cliché, surveillance, sabotage, bureaucrat, chic, petite, elegant | No English equivalents: English borrows these because it lacks precise alternatives |
📚 Reference Section for Learners
Section 1: Vocabulary Reference Tables
All words marked in purple bold in the article are listed below.
Table A — European Languages & Gaelic
| English Word | Definition | Danish | Dutch | French | Gaelic | German | Polish | Portuguese | Russian | Spanish |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| diglossia | a situation in which two languages or language varieties coexist in the same community but are used for different purposes, social functions, or levels of formality; the high variety is used in formal, official, or educated contexts, while the low variety is used in everyday, domestic, and informal contexts; Norman England was a clear example of diglossia, with French as the high variety and English as the low variety | diglossi | diglossia | la diglossie (f) | dà-chainnt (f) | die Diglossie | diglosja | a diglossia | диглоссия | la diglosia |
| register | in linguistics, the level of formality or social context associated with a particular style of language use; different registers are appropriate for different social situations: a formal register uses longer, more complex words (often French-derived in English) and complex sentence structures, while an informal register uses shorter, more direct words (often Germanic in English) and simpler structures; the choice of register signals social awareness, education, and the speaker’s assessment of the situation | register | register | le registre (m) | clàr-cainnte (m) | das Register | rejestr | o registro | регистр | el registro |
| prestige | high social status, respect, or admiration derived from success, influence, or achievement; in sociolinguistics, a prestige language or variety is one that is associated with social power, education, and high status, and which speakers of lower-status varieties often aspire to use; in Norman England, French was the prestige language because it was spoken by the ruling class | prestige | prestige | le prestige (m) | inbhe (f) | das Prestige | prestiż | o prestígio | престиж | el prestigio |
| loanword | a word adopted from one language and used in another; also called a borrowing; English has borrowed extensively from French, Latin, Greek, and many other languages; a loanword may be adopted with little change (café, ballet) or may be adapted to fit the borrowing language’s phonology and spelling (commence, from French commencer) | låneord | leenwoord | le mot emprunté (m) | facal iasaid (m) | das Lehnwort | zapożyczenie | a palavra emprestada | заимствованное слово | el préstamo lingüístico |
| lexicon | the vocabulary of a language, a person, or a subject area; all the words that belong to a language or are known to a speaker; in the context of this article, the lexicon of English is shown to contain a much larger proportion of French-derived words (28.3%) than might be expected given that English is technically a Germanic language | leksikon | lexicon | le lexique (m) | faclair (m) | das Lexikon | leksykon | o léxico | лексика | el léxico |
| vernacular | the ordinary, everyday language used by the common people of a particular country or region, as opposed to the formal or literary language used by the educated classes or in official contexts; in medieval England, English was the vernacular (the language of the people) while French and Latin were the languages of power | hverdagssprog | volkstaal | le vernaculaire (m) | cainnt chumanta (f) | die Volkssprache | język potoczny | o vernáculo | просторечие | la lengua vernácula |
| stratification | the arrangement of society or language into different levels or layers, with different groups occupying different positions; social stratification in Norman England meant that French speakers occupied the top layers of society while English speakers occupied the lower layers, and this stratification was directly reflected in which language was used in which contexts | stratificering | stratificatie | la stratification (f) | sreathachadh (m) | die Schichtung | stratyfikacja | a estratificação | стратификация | la estratificación |
| euphemism | a mild or indirect expression used in place of one that might be considered too harsh, direct, or unpleasant; a word or phrase used to soften the impact of something difficult or taboo; in the article, French words are shown to function as euphemisms in English because French sounds more refined and less direct than the Anglo-Saxon equivalent — lingerie for underwear, en bon point for fat, risqué for indecent | eufemisme | eufemisme | l’euphémisme (m) | modhaire-cainnte (m) | das Euphemismus | eufemizm | o eufemismo | эвфемизм | el eufemismo |
| doublet | in linguistics, two words in a language that come from the same original source (etymon) but have diverged in meaning or register; in the context of French-English contact, doublets are pairs of words in English where one is Old English/Germanic and one is French-derived, such as begin/commence, help/aid, freedom/liberty; they often occupy different social registers | dobbeltform | doublet | le doublet (m) | càraid-fhacail (f) | das Wortzwillingspaar | dublet | o doblete | дублет | el doblete |
| harbinger | a person or thing that announces or signals the approach of something; a forerunner or precursor that indicates what is coming; used here to describe the bilingual acclamation at William’s coronation as an early sign of the linguistic coexistence that would follow; in modern English, harbinger typically carries a slightly ominous tone | varsel | voorbode | le précurseur (m) | roimh-fhios (m) | der Vorbote | zwiastun | o prenúncio | предвестник | el heraldo |
| acclamation | enthusiastic approval or praise expressed by a crowd, especially the act of shouting or cheering to express agreement or welcome; at William’s coronation, the crowd’s acclamation was given in both English and French, reflecting the bilingual reality of the new kingdom | hyldest | acclamatie | l’acclamation (f) | gàirdeachas (m) | die Akklamation | aklamacja | a aclamação | аккламация | la aclamación |
| lingua franca | a language used as a common means of communication between speakers of different native languages; a bridge language; French was the lingua franca of European diplomacy from the seventeenth to the early twentieth century; today, English serves as the global lingua franca; the original Lingua Franca was a pidgin used in Mediterranean trade | fælles sprog | lingua franca | la langue commune (f) | coimh-chainnt (f) | die Lingua Franca | lingua franca | a língua franca | лингва франка | la lengua franca |
| cosmopolitan | familiar with and at ease in many different countries and cultures; having a wide international outlook rather than a narrow national one; used here to describe the European aristocratic elite who spoke French in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries as a mark of their international education and cultural sophistication | kosmopolitisk | kosmopoliet | cosmopolite | eadar-nàiseanta | kosmopolitisch | kosmopolityczny | cosmopolita | космополитический | cosmopolita |
| etymological | relating to etymology, the study of the origin and historical development of words; an etymological analysis of English vocabulary reveals the proportions of words derived from French, Latin, Germanic, and other sources; etymological dictionaries trace the history of each word back through the languages from which it was borrowed | etymologisk | etymologisch | étymologique | bun-fhaclaireachd | etymologisch | etymologiczny | etimológico | этимологический | etimológico |
| pleadings | formal legal documents or statements presented in court; in the context of the 1362 Statute of Pleading, ‘pleadings’ refers to the oral arguments, defences, and statements made by lawyers and litigants in court proceedings; the Statute required these to be conducted in English rather than French | anbringender | pleidooien | les conclusions (f pl) | tagraidhean (m pl) | die Schriftsätze | pisma procesowe | as alegações | судебные доводы | los alegatos |
| vulgar | in common or everyday use; in Latin, the Vulgar Latin was the everyday spoken Latin of the Roman Empire, as opposed to Classical Latin; today, the word has shifted to mean crude, indecent, or in poor taste; this shift in meaning mirrors the article’s central argument about how ‘French’ shifted from elevated to vulgar in the phrase ‘pardon my French’ | vulgær | vulgair | vulgaire | gràisg | vulgär | wulgarny | vulgar | вульгарный | vulgar |
| antiquity | the ancient past, especially the period of Greek and Roman civilisation; also used to refer to ancient artefacts, texts, or cultural practices; in the context of the article, Latin was becoming antiquated by the seventeenth century as French replaced it as the language of diplomacy and intellectual culture | oldtid | oudheid | l’Antiquité (f) | àrsaidheachd (f) | die Antike | starożytność | a Antiguidade | античность | la Antigüedad |
| rhetorical | relating to the effective use of language to persuade, argue, or express ideas; a rhetorical effect is one that serves the purpose of communication or persuasion rather than merely conveying literal meaning; in the article, the availability of Germanic, French, and Latin synonyms at three different registers gives English writers a powerful rhetorical tool | retorisk | retorisch | rhétorique | rannsachail | rhetorisch | retoryczny | retórico | риторический | retórico |
| relic | a surviving trace or remnant of something from an earlier time; an object, practice, or feature that has persisted from a past era even though the context in which it originated has changed or disappeared; legal doublets like aid and abet or null and void are described as linguistic relics of the period when lawyers needed to communicate in both French and English | relikvieskrift | relict | le relique (f) | fuigheall (m) | das Relikt | relikt | o relíquio | реликт | la reliquia |
| inheritance | something received from earlier generations; the passing down of property, characteristics, or cultural features from one generation to the next; used here to describe the French vocabulary that English received from the Norman period and the centuries that followed — a linguistic inheritance that makes English more Romance than Germanic in its word stock | arv | erfenis | l’héritage (m) | dìleab (f) | das Erbe | dziedzictwo | a herança | наследство | la herencia |
| irony | a situation or expression in which the actual outcome is very different from, or even opposite to, what was expected; a use of words or situations where what is meant is the opposite of what is literally said; the article identifies several ironies: the Statute banning French from courts was itself written in French; ‘pardon my French’ uses the language of refinement to excuse crude speech; English’s largest vocabulary source is from a conquering nation | ironi | ironie | l’ironie (f) | ìoranais (f) | die Ironie | ironia | a ironia | ирония | la ironía |
| reservoir | a large natural or artificial lake used as a source of water supply; metaphorically, a large store or supply of something that can be drawn upon; used here to describe the vast stock of French-derived vocabulary that English accumulated through the Norman period and the subsequent centuries of French cultural influence | reservoir | reservoir | le réservoir (m) | tasgairt (m) | das Reservoir | zbiornik | o reservatório | резервуар | el reservorio |
Table B — Asian Languages
| English Word | Bengali | Chinese (Simplified) | Hindi | Indonesian | Japanese | Punjabi | Turkish |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| diglossia | দ্বিভাষিকতা (f) dbibhāṣikatā |
双语共存 (f) shuāngyǔ gòngcún |
द्विभाषावाद (m) dvibhāṣāvād |
diglosia | 二言語使用 (f) nigengo shiyō |
ਦੋ-ਭਾਸ਼ਾਵਾਦ (m) do-bhāṣāvāda |
diglosi |
| register | ভাষা স্তর (m) bhāṣā stara |
语言语域 (m) yǔyán yǔyù |
भाषा शैली (f) bhāṣā śailī |
ragam bahasa | 言語レジスター (m) gengo rejisutā |
ਭਾਸ਼ਾ ਪੱਧਰ (m) bhāśā paddara |
dil kaydı |
| prestige | মর্যাদা (f) maraẏādā |
声望 (f) shēngwàng |
प्रतिष्ठा (f) pratiṣṭhā |
prestise | 名声 (f) meisei |
ਪ੍ਰਤਿਸ਼ਠਾ (f) pratiṣṭhā |
prestij |
| loanword | ধার করা শব্দ (m) dhāra karā śabda |
外来词 (m) wàiláicí |
ऋण शब्द (m) r̥ṇ śabd |
kata pinjaman | 借用語 (m) shakuyo-go |
ਉਧਾਰ ਸ਼ਬਦ (m) udhāra śabada |
alıntı sözcük |
| lexicon | শব্দভাণ্ডার (m) śabdabhāṇḍāra |
词汇 (m) cíhuì |
शब्द भंडार (m) śabd bhaṃḍār |
leksikon | 語彙 (m) goi |
ਸ਼ਬਦ-ਭੰਡਾਰ (m) śabada-bhaṃḍāra |
söz varlığı |
| vernacular | মাতৃভাষা (f) mātr̥bhāṣā |
本土语言 (f) běntǔ yǔyán |
स्थानीय भाषा (f) sthānīya bhāṣā |
bahasa vernakular | 口語 (f) kogo |
ਮਾਤ੍ਰਭਾਸ਼ਾ (f) mātrabhāśā |
yerel dil |
| euphemism | শোভন প্রকাশ (m) śōbhana prakāśa |
委婉语 (m) wěiwǎnyǔ |
सौम्य शब्द (m) saumya śabd |
eufemisme | 婉曲表現 (m) encyoku hyōgen |
ਨਰਮ ਭਾਸ਼ਾ (f) narama bhāśā |
nezaket ifadesi |
| doublet | ভাষার জোড়া (m) bhāṣāra jōṛā |
同源词对 (m) tóngyuán cí duì |
समजातीय जोड़ा (m) samajātīya joṛā |
pasangan kata | 語源的対 (m) gogenteki tsui |
ਸਮਜੋੜਾ (m) samajōṛā |
ikiz sözcük |
| lingua franca | সাধারণ ভাষা (f) sādhāraṇa bhāṣā |
通用语 (f) tōngyòng yǔ |
सम्पर्क भाषा (f) sampark bhāṣā |
lingua franca | 共通語 (f) kyōtsūgo |
ਸਾਂਝੀ ਭਾਸ਼ਾ (f) sāṃjhī bhāśā |
ortak dil |
| stratification | সামাজিক স্তরীকরণ (m) sāmājika starikāraṇa |
社会分层 (f) shèhuì fēncéng |
सामाजिक स्तरीकरण (m) sāmājik starīkaraṇ |
stratifikasi | 社会的階層化 (f) shakaite-ki kaisōka |
ਸਮਾਜਿਕ ਪਰਤਬੰਦੀ (f) samājika paratbaṃdī |
toplumsal tabakalaşma |
| irony | বিদ্রূপ (m) bidrūpa |
讽刺 (f) fěngcì |
व्यंग्य (m) vyaṃgy |
ironi | 皮肉 (m) hiniku |
ਵਿਅੰਗ (m) viāṃga |
ironi |
| inheritance | উত্তরাধিকার (m) uttarādhikāra |
遗产 (m) yíchǎn |
विरासत (f) virāsat |
warisan | 遺産 (m) isan |
ਵਿਰਾਸਤ (f) virāsata |
miras |
| vernacular | আঞ্চলিক ভাষা (f) āñcalika bhāṣā |
方言 (f) fāngyán |
बोलचाल की भाषा (f) bolacāl kī bhāṣā |
bahasa daerah | 口語 (f) kogo |
ਸਥਾਨਕ ਭਾਸ਼ਾ (f) sathānaka bhāśā |
yöresel dil |
| cosmopolitan | আন্তর্জাতিক মনোভাব (adj) āntarjātika manōbhāba |
国际化的 (adj) guójìhuà de |
अंतर्राष्ट्रीय (adj) aṃtarrāṣṭrīya |
kosmopolitan | 国際的な (adj) kokusai-teki na |
ਕੌਮਾਂਤਰੀ (adj) kaumāṃtarī |
kozmopolit |
| prestige | সম্মান (m) sammāna |
威望 (m) wēiwàng |
प्रतिष्ठा (f) pratiṣṭhā |
prestis | 威信 (m) ishin |
ਸ਼ੋਹਰਤ (f) śōharata |
itibar |
📗 Section 2: Expressions & Phrases
All expressions marked in green in the article are explained below.
associated with
connected to; linked in people’s minds with; having a relationship or connection with something
‘The paradox at the heart of this article is how French became associated with vulgarity and obscenity when for three hundred years it was the most elevated language in England.’
made English
shaped or created English; transformed English into what it is; had a formative or constitutive role in producing the English language we use today
‘How did French make English the language it is today? The answer is one of the great stories of how conquest, power, and daily communication interact over centuries to produce a language.’
rubbed up against
came into direct, sometimes uncomfortable contact with; interacted with in close proximity, often creating friction or tension
‘For three centuries after the Conquest, English and French rubbed up against each other every day — in households where Norman masters gave orders to English servants, in markets where traders spoke different languages, in courts where the law was administered in French to people who understood only English.’
serve different functions
perform distinct roles; be used for different purposes in a community or system
‘In a diglossia, two languages coexist in the same community but serve different functions: the high variety is used for formal, official, educated contexts, while the low variety is used for everyday domestic life.’
dealt across
conducted transactions, negotiations, or communications across a divide; operated across a boundary, whether linguistic, social, or physical
‘Norman masters and English servants dealt across the language divide every day — the necessities of agricultural production, trade, and household management requiring communication between people who did not share a language.’
take over
seize control of; take possession of; assume command or ownership of
‘William’s Norman nobles took over the great estates of England, replacing Anglo-Saxon landowners and installing French as the language of the new aristocracy.’
holds across
remains valid or consistent across a range of cases or domains; applies throughout
‘The pattern holds across all of these domains: wherever English speakers encountered luxury, sophistication, or power, they encountered it in French — and they took the words along with the things the words described.’
took the words along with the things
borrowed the vocabulary at the same time as adopting the practices, concepts, or objects; language was imported alongside culture
‘When English speakers encountered French concepts of law, cuisine, and art, they took the words along with the things — because there was no existing English vocabulary for concepts that had been introduced through the French-speaking aristocracy.’
playing out
enacting; giving expression to; performing or acting out in a real and often unconscious way
‘When you choose liberty over freedom, or commence over begin, you are playing out a social drama that began on the fields of Hastings in 1066 — making choices that carry the weight of a thousand years of social stratification.’
fossilised
became fixed and unchanging; preserved in a rigid form that no longer reflects the living state of the original; retained from an earlier period without adaptation
‘Legal doublets fossilised into fixed phrases preserved by the legal language even when the distinction between the two words became meaningless — structures from medieval multilingualism preserved in modern contract law.’
came together
combined; converged; accumulated in the same time and place to produce a combined effect
‘French’s decline as England’s official language was the result of a combination of political, demographic, and cultural forces that came together in the fourteenth century to restore English to the centre of national life.’
regained its footing
recovered its position; re-established itself after a period of displacement or weakness; found stable ground again after a difficult period
‘For nearly three centuries after English regained its footing as the language of England, French remained the dominant language of European culture, scholarship, and diplomacy.’
traces its origins
can be traced back to; has its beginning in; originates from
‘The phrase pardon my French traces its origins to the early nineteenth century, when it was used literally as an apology for inserting French words into English conversation.’
attributing to
assigning to; placing the responsibility or characteristic onto; identifying as belonging to or originating from
‘The long tradition of attributing to the French anything the English find distasteful is mirrored by the French doing exactly the same thing in reverse — French leave in English, filer à l’anglaise in French.’
projecting onto
assigning one’s own feelings, characteristics, or behaviours to someone else; attributing to another person or group what is actually one’s own; used here of how both English and French cultures project embarrassing behaviours onto each other
‘Each of these expressions reveals the same pattern: two neighbours projecting onto each other the behaviours they find most embarrassing, as if labelling something foreign neutralises the discomfort of acknowledging it.’
neutralises
removes the effectiveness of; makes something harmless or less threatening by counteracting it; makes something no longer troubling or significant
‘Labelling something as foreign neutralises the discomfort of acknowledging it — if syphilis is the French pox and condoms are French letters, then the English do not have to own these uncomfortable realities as their own.’
softened the impact
reduced the force, severity, or offensiveness of something; made something less harsh or shocking
‘The euphemistic use of French softened the impact of what might otherwise be considered too direct or too crude — a social convention that French words carried an aura of sophistication making them more acceptable in polite society.’
settled
brought to a conclusion; resolved by negotiation; ended a conflict or dispute through agreement
‘The Treaty of Utrecht (1713), which settled the War of the Spanish Succession, was the first major international treaty to be composed primarily in French — marking the formalisation of French as the language of European diplomacy.’
tipped the scales
shifted the balance; changed the outcome by adding decisive weight to one side; caused one side to prevail in a situation that had previously been evenly balanced
‘The entry of the United States as a global power tipped the scales in favour of English — making the Treaty of Versailles the last major international agreement drafted primarily in French.’
regained its footing
re-established its position; recovered stability after a period of weakness or displacement
‘After English regained its footing as the official language of England, the influence of French continued through the prestige of French culture and the continuing borrowing of French vocabulary for domains of refinement.’
signalling
indicating; communicating by sending a signal; expressing indirectly through a choice or action rather than explicitly stating
‘Words like soufflé and château retain their French identity, signalling that the thing they name belongs to a domain — cooking, wine, architecture — where France is still the reference point.’
crack
to develop a split or weakness; to begin to break down or fail; used figuratively of a position of dominance beginning to weaken
‘The dominance of French as the language of diplomacy began to crack only after the First World War — the entry of English as an equal partner in the Treaty of Versailles marking the beginning of the end.’
signal membership in
indicate or demonstrate that one belongs to; send a social message that one is part of; use a symbol (in this case, a language) to communicate social identity
‘To speak French in the seventeenth century was not merely to communicate in a convenient common language: it was to signal membership in a cosmopolitan elite — to demonstrate education, refinement, and social standing.’
📘 Section 3: Grammar Points
Grammar structures marked in teal dashed underline in the article are explained below.
Without the Norman Conquest — without that arrow, that Christmas crowning, and the linguistic upheaval that followed — the English language would be almost unrecognisable to a modern reader (without X — without the specific elements of X — the result would be Y — for establishing the historical importance of an event through a counterfactual that specifies what would be absent if the event had not occurred)
Example from article: “Without the Norman Conquest — without that arrow, that Christmas crowning, and the linguistic upheaval that followed — the English language would be almost unrecognisable to a modern reader: closer to modern German or Dutch in its grammar and vocabulary.“
Structure: Without + noun phrase (the Norman Conquest) + em-dash + without + three-part list of specific elements + em-dash + subject (the English language) + would be + adjective + colon + further specification of the counterfactual outcome
Explanation: The em-dash pair creates a parenthetical that specifies what ‘the Norman Conquest’ actually consisted of — breaking the historical event down into its memorable concrete elements (the arrow, the Christmas crowning, the linguistic upheaval). This specificity makes the counterfactual more vivid: instead of asking the reader to imagine ‘no Norman Conquest,’ it asks them to imagine the absence of these specific, named things. ‘Would be almost unrecognisable’ uses the conditional to signal a counterfactual (what would have happened if X had not occurred). The colon introduces the positive description of what that unrecognisable English would look like.
Further examples: Without Shakespeare’s influence — without those plays, those characters, and the theatrical experimentation that accompanied them — the English language would be impoverished in ways that are difficult to quantify: lacking thousands of coinages, idioms, and expressions that are now treated as basic vocabulary.
The social landscape this created was a diglossia: a situation in which two languages coexist in the same community but serve different functions — one used for high-status, formal, educated communication, and the other used for everyday domestic life (X created Y: a situation in which A and B but do C — one used for D, and the other for E — for defining a technical concept by immediately following the term with a colon and a plain-language explanation)
Example from article: “The social landscape this created was a diglossia: a situation in which two languages coexist in the same community but serve different functions — one used for high-status, formal, educated communication, and the other used for everyday domestic life.“
Structure: Subject (the social landscape) + this + created + was + technical term (diglossia) + colon + a situation in which + A (two languages) + verb (coexist) + but + do different things + em-dash + one used for + D + and the other used for + E
Explanation: ‘The social landscape this created was’ is a compact way of saying ‘the Norman Conquest created a social landscape that was.’ The demonstrative ‘this’ refers to everything described in the previous sentences. After the technical term ‘diglossia,’ the colon immediately introduces a plain-language definition, which is essential when using specialist vocabulary: the article shows the term and simultaneously defines it for readers who may not know it. The em-dash + ‘one used for… and the other for…’ completes the definition by contrasting the two varieties, making the abstract concept concrete through the contrast.
Further examples: The digital landscape this created was a filter bubble: a situation in which algorithms show people only content they are likely to agree with, reinforcing existing beliefs — one information environment for those who search in a particular way, and a completely different one for those who search differently.
The same object — the same animal — carried two names depending on whether you were looking at it standing in a field or lying on a plate: one name for the people who raised it and one for the people who ate it, and the language of the eaters was French (the same X — the same X — carried two names depending on whether Y or Z: one name for A and one for B, and the language of B was French — for revealing a social division embedded in a linguistic fact through parallel structure and a punch-line conclusion)
Example from article: “The same object — the same animal — carried two names depending on whether you were looking at it standing in a field or lying on a plate: one name for the people who raised it and one for the people who ate it, and the language of the eaters was French.“
Structure: The same + noun + em-dash + the same + noun (repeated) + em-dash + verb (carried) + two names + depending on whether + situation A (field) + or + situation B (plate) + colon + one name for + people A + and one for + people B + comma + and + the language of + B + was + French
Explanation: The double em-dash repetition (‘the same object — the same animal’) provides emphasis through repetition: the point is that there is no difference in the thing itself, only in who is naming it and from what perspective. ‘Depending on whether you were looking at it standing in a field or lying on a plate’ is a beautifully concrete binary: it maps the abstract social division (serf/lord, English speaker/French speaker) onto a specific visual contrast (living animal vs prepared meal). The colon introduces the social interpretation of the linguistic fact. The punch-line — ‘and the language of the eaters was French’ — arrives last, making the social meaning explicit after the linguistic fact has been established.
Further examples: The same person — the same individual — received two different responses depending on whether you encountered them in an expensive suit or in a high-visibility vest: one set of social assumptions for the person in the suit and another for the person in the vest, and the assumptions about intelligence and authority were overwhelmingly associated with the suit.
English speakers in the medieval period borrowed the vocabulary of elevated thought because they were borrowing the ideas themselves — gaining access to a body of learning that had been conducted in French or Latin and that English had not developed the vocabulary to describe (A did X because they were doing Y — gaining access to Z that had been conducted in L and that their language had not developed vocabulary for — for explaining borrowing as an act of intellectual access rather than mere imitation)
Example from article: “English speakers in the medieval period borrowed the vocabulary of elevated thought because they were borrowing the ideas themselves — gaining access to a body of learning that had been conducted in French or Latin and that English, having been sidelined as a language of power for two centuries, had not developed the vocabulary to describe.“
Structure: Subject (English speakers) + borrowed + the vocabulary of X + because + they were borrowing + the ideas themselves + em-dash + present participle (gaining access to) + a body of learning + that had been conducted in + French or Latin + and that + English + having been sidelined + had not developed + the vocabulary to describe
Explanation: The key claim is the causal chain: the vocabulary was borrowed because the ideas were borrowed. This reverses the expected direction of influence (where people usually learn the word for a concept they already have): here, the ideas themselves were new, and the vocabulary came with them as a package. The em-dash introduces a present participle phrase that specifies exactly what kind of access this was: to ‘a body of learning’ conducted in French or Latin. The parenthetical (‘having been sidelined as a language of power for two centuries’) explains why English had not developed its own vocabulary: it had been the excluded language, without access to the intellectual culture that was conducted in the other languages.
Further examples: Learners who studied abroad borrowed the vocabulary of professional practice because they were borrowing the professional culture itself — gaining access to a set of workplace norms and standards that had been developed in English-speaking contexts and that their native professional culture had not yet developed the vocabulary to describe precisely.
The English speaker who goes to court, serves on a jury, pays their taxes, elects a parliament, or reads about military campaigns is doing so, in large part, in a vocabulary that was imported from a language spoken by people who conquered their ancestors nearly a thousand years ago (subject + who does A, does B, does C, does D, or does E + is doing so in X that was imported from Y — for accumulating evidence for a striking claim through a list and then delivering the punch-line through the grammatical structure of the main clause)
Example from article: “The English speaker who goes to court, serves on a jury, pays their taxes, elects a parliament, or reads about military campaigns is doing so, in large part, in a vocabulary that was imported from a language spoken by people who conquered their ancestors nearly a thousand years ago.“
Structure: The + noun (English speaker) + who + does A + comma + does B + comma + does C + comma + does D + comma + or + does E + is doing so + comma + in large part + comma + in + a vocabulary + that was imported from + a language + spoken by people + who + conquered their ancestors + nearly + a thousand years ago
Explanation: The long relative clause (‘who goes to court, serves on a jury…’) accumulates five mundane civic activities before the main clause delivers its surprise: all of these everyday activities are conducted in borrowed vocabulary. ‘In large part’ hedges the claim appropriately: not every word in these domains is French, but enough to make the point significant. ‘From a language spoken by people who conquered their ancestors nearly a thousand years ago’ is the conclusion: it personalises the historical fact by connecting it to the reader’s own ancestry, making the abstract linguistic history concrete and slightly unsettling.
Further examples: The technology user who sends an email, uses a GPS, searches the internet, watches a video call, or scrolls through social media is doing so, in large part, in an interface designed by a culture whose language, values, and assumptions are embedded in the very structure of the tools they are using.
The statute banning French from the English courts was itself written in Law French — a situation so perfectly ironic that historians have been noting it for centuries (X was itself Y: a situation so ironic that Z — for making an irony explicit and signalling that it is not just the author’s observation but one that others have also noticed)
Example from article: “The statute banning French from the English courts was itself written in Law French — an irony that has not been lost on historians: the phrase trop desconue (too little known) appearing in the original text.“
Structure: Subject (the statute) + present participle (banning) + French + from + the English courts + was + itself + written in + Law French + em-dash + an irony + that has not been lost on + historians + colon + specific example from the original text
Explanation: ‘Was itself written in’ uses ‘itself’ as an intensifier to highlight the irony: the verb ‘ban’ plus the subject ‘statute banning French’ plus ‘written in French’ creates the paradox. The em-dash introduces the evaluative label: ‘an irony.’ ‘Has not been lost on historians’ signals that this is not the author’s private observation but something that experts have repeatedly noted — adding authority to the point. The colon introduces the specific textual evidence: the French phrase in the English statute is cited directly, making the irony tangible.
Further examples: The committee established to simplify government bureaucracy produced a report so complex, lengthy, and filled with technical jargon that few civil servants could fully understand it — an irony that was not lost on observers: the executive summary alone ran to forty-two pages.
The euphemistic use of French was not just a personal habit but a social convention — French carried an aura of sophistication that softened the impact of what might otherwise be considered too direct or too crude (X was not just A but B: Y carried an aura of Z that did W — for explaining a social practice by locating it in the structure of cultural prestige rather than in individual behaviour)
Example from article: “The euphemistic use of French was not just a personal habit but a social convention — French carried an aura of sophistication that softened the impact of what might otherwise be considered too direct or too crude.“
Structure: Subject (the euphemistic use) + was not just + A (personal habit) + but + B (social convention) + em-dash + subject (French) + carried + an aura of + Z (sophistication) + that + verb (softened) + the impact of + what might otherwise + be considered + too direct or too crude
Explanation: ‘Not just A but B’ is a standard correction and elevation structure: it rejects the inadequate explanation (personal quirk) and replaces it with the more significant one (social convention). The em-dash introduces the mechanism: it is not just that people chose to use French, but that French carried an ‘aura’ (a cultural quality attached to the language itself) that produced the softening effect automatically. ‘What might otherwise be considered too direct or too crude’ uses a conditional modal to describe what the French word replaces: the implied English alternative that would be socially unacceptable.
Further examples: The preference for Latin names in medicine was not just a historical accident but a functional social convention — Latin carried an aura of precision and authority that elevated what might otherwise be considered merely descriptive language into technical vocabulary that conferred expertise on those who used it.
Each of these locutions reveals the same pattern: two neighbours who admire and resent each other in equal measure, each projecting onto the other the behaviours they find most embarrassing, as if the act of labelling something foreign neutralises the discomfort of acknowledging it at all (each of these X reveals the same pattern: A who do Y, each doing Z, as if W — for identifying a recurring social-psychological pattern through a series of examples and naming the underlying mechanism)
Example from article: “Each of these locutions reveals the same pattern: two neighbours who admire and resent each other in equal measure, each projecting onto the other the behaviours they find most embarrassing, as if the act of labelling something foreign neutralises the discomfort of acknowledging it at all.“
Structure: Each of these + noun (locutions) + reveals + the same pattern + colon + two + nouns (neighbours) + who + do A and B + in equal measure + comma + each + present participle (projecting onto) + the other + the behaviours they find most + adjective (embarrassing) + comma + as if + the act of + doing X (labelling something foreign) + neutralises + the discomfort of + acknowledging + it at all
Explanation: The sentence moves from evidence (the locutions — French pox, French leave, French letter; filer à l’anglaise, capote anglaise) to pattern (the same psychological mechanism appears in all of them). ‘In equal measure’ establishes symmetry: both nations do this to each other, with equivalent cultural logic. ‘Each projecting onto the other’ names the psychological mechanism: projection (assigning to the other what one cannot comfortably own about oneself). ‘As if’ introduces a conditional that names the underlying logic of the behavior: the act of labelling something as foreign removes it from the self and places it at a safe distance.
Further examples: Each of these stereotypes reveals the same defensive pattern: two communities that depend on and resent each other in equal measure, each attributing to the other the social failures they find most threatening in themselves, as if the act of naming the problem as external neutralises the discomfort of recognising it as potentially internal too.
✏️ Section 4: Comprehension Questions & Exercises
Answer in full sentences using evidence from the article.
- The article opens with a paradox about the phrase “pardon my French.” In your own words, what is the paradox, and why does it make a good starting point for an article about the French influence on English?
- What is “diglossia”? Using the article’s definition, explain what a diglossic situation looks like in the context of Norman England, naming the two languages and their respective functions.
- Explain the “animal/meat divide” described in the article. What were the names that Anglo-Saxon serfs used for farm animals, and what were the names that Norman lords used for the same animals when served as food? What does this division reveal about the social structure of post-Conquest England?
- The article identifies several domains in which English borrowed heavily from French. Name THREE of these domains and give at least TWO examples of French-origin words in each.
- The article says that the French influence on English created a system of “register” through synonym pairs. Choose THREE of the pairs given (e.g. help/aid) and explain the difference in register between the two words in each pair.
- What is a “legal doublet”? Explain why legal doublets arose in medieval English law and give THREE examples from the article. Why do these doublets still survive in modern contract law?
- What happened in 1362 to change the status of French in England? What was the Statute of Pleading, and what is the specific irony associated with the document itself?
- Trace the origins of the phrase “pardon my French” as described in the article. What was its literal meaning in the 1820s and how did it evolve into its modern figurative meaning? Name TWO English expressions and their French equivalents that illustrate the tradition of attributing embarrassing behaviour to the other country.
- What is meant by the term “lingua franca”? Over what period was French the lingua franca of European diplomacy, and what event in 1919 began its decline in this role?
- According to the most careful etymological analyses, what percentage of English vocabulary is French in origin? How does this compare with the Germanic component? What does the article call “the irony of English’s position as a Germanic language”?
For each of the following sentences, decide whether the highlighted word is (a) Germanic/Old English or (b) French/Latin-French in origin. Then rewrite the sentence using the synonym from the OTHER register. The first is done for you.
- “The committee has decided to begin the review process next week.” → Germanic origin. Formal version: “The committee has decided to commence the review process next week.”
- “The charity aims to aid vulnerable families during the winter months.” → . Informal version:
- “She spoke with great freedom about her experiences.” → . Formal version:
- “I need to buy a replacement component.” → . Formal version:
- “The deceased’s estate will be distributed according to their will.” → . Informal version:
- “His annual review will take place in June.” → . Informal version:
- “We must ask the client whether they wish to proceed.” → . Formal version:
- “The contract will commence on 1 January.” → . Informal version:
Grammar Point 1 uses the structure: “Without X — without [specific elements of X] — Y would be Z.” Use this structure to write historical counterfactuals for each of the following scenarios. The first is done for you.
- Scenario: The Norman Conquest and its effect on English vocabulary.
→ Without the Norman Conquest — without William’s French-speaking nobles, the three centuries of Law French, and the cultural prestige of the Norman court — the English language would lack the vast French vocabulary that today constitutes nearly 30% of all English words: a language closer to Dutch or German, without the capacity to express concepts like justice, parliament, cuisine, or liberty in the words it now uses. - Scenario: The Black Death of 1348–1351 and its effect on the status of English speakers in England.
→ - Scenario: The Treaty of Versailles (1919) and the rise of English as a diplomatic language.
→ - Scenario: TikTok and the discovery of Fleetwood Mac’s “Dreams” by a new generation (refer to the music article).
→
The article describes “pardon my French” as “the product of both traditions at once” — both the euphemistic prestige of French and the anti-French tradition of attributing vulgar behaviour to the other nation. Using evidence from the article, answer the following questions.
- Give THREE examples of English expressions that attribute something embarrassing or shameful to France. Give the French equivalents where the article provides them. What do these pairs tell us about the psychological relationship between England and France?
- The article gives examples of French words that entered English as euphemisms because French sounded more refined than the Anglo-Saxon alternative: lingerie, risqué, toilette. Can you think of any other examples from your own knowledge of English or French? Why does using a foreign language as a euphemism for taboo subjects work psychologically?
- The article says the 1362 Statute of Pleading was “itself written in Law French.” What does this irony reveal about the pace at which languages change, even when law decrees that they should? Can you think of any modern equivalents — rules or institutions that contradict themselves in a similar way?
Read each statement and decide: TRUE (T), FALSE (F), or NOT GIVEN in the article (NG)?
- French was the official language of England for approximately 300 years following the Norman Conquest.
- The words ox, cow, calf, and sheep are of French origin, because the Normans tended the farm animals.
- According to etymological analysis, French (including Anglo-Norman) accounts for approximately 28.3% of all English vocabulary.
- The Pleading in English Act of 1362 required that court records and enrolments be kept in English as well as oral proceedings.
- The earliest documented use of “pardon my French” appears in John Neal’s 1823 novel Randolph.
- The French equivalent of the English “French leave” is filer à l’anglaise (to leave English-style).
- The Treaty of Versailles (1919) was the last major international treaty to be composed solely in French.
- The article says that French is projected to have up to 590 million speakers worldwide by 2050, with approximately 90% of those speakers living in Africa.
- Latin is the second largest contributor to English vocabulary, after French, according to the etymological breakdown cited in the article.
- The legal doublet “aid and abet” consists of one word of French origin and one word of Old English origin.
Choose ONE of the following tasks. Write approximately 250–300 words.
- Analytical essay: The article argues that the choice between Germanic and French-derived synonyms in English (help/aid, begin/commence, freedom/liberty) is not merely a stylistic preference but carries social and historical meaning. Write an essay evaluating this claim. Do you think modern English speakers are aware of the register differences between these pairs when they make word choices? Does the social origin of these pairs still matter in contemporary English, or has the distinction become merely formal? Use Grammar Point 5 (the English speaker who does A, B, C, D, or E is doing so in a vocabulary imported from…) at least once and at least SIX vocabulary items from the purple section.
- Historical essay: The article traces the decline of French from the language of power in England to a language associated with vulgarity in the phrase “pardon my French.” Write an essay analysing this reversal. What does it tell us about how the status of a language is determined by the social and political power of its speakers rather than by any intrinsic quality of the language itself? Use Grammar Point 1 (Without X — without [specific elements] — Y would be Z) at least once and at least FOUR expressions from the green section.
- Comparative essay: The article describes French as having had a massive impact on English through conquest, prestige, and cultural influence. Consider your own native language: which foreign language has had the greatest impact on it? What were the historical circumstances of that impact (conquest, trade, cultural prestige, colonial relationship)? Write an essay comparing this impact with the French-English case, using specific examples of loanwords or register effects in your own language. Use Grammar Point 8 (Each of these reveals the same pattern: two A who do B, each doing C, as if D) at least once.
Discuss with a partner or write your thoughts as short paragraphs.
- The article shows that the words for refined food in English are French (beef, veal, mutton, pork, venison) while the words for live farm animals are Old English (ox, cow, calf, sheep, swine). Can you think of similar patterns in your own language, where different words for the same thing signal different social relationships or levels of prestige? Do social hierarchies leave this kind of trace in vocabulary?
- The article explains that “pardon my French” reflects centuries of rivalry, admiration, and resentment between England and France. Do you know any similar expressions in your own language that blame or attribute unpleasant things to a neighbouring country? Why do you think languages develop these expressions, and what do they reveal about the cultural relationship between nations?
- The article says that English has a “Germanic skeleton clothed in a Romance wardrobe.” What do you think this metaphor means? Do you think there is an equivalent structure in any other language you know — a language that belongs to one family by structure but has been heavily influenced by another family in its vocabulary?
- French is currently projected to grow to 590 million speakers by 2050, with 90% living in Africa. How do you think this shift in the centre of gravity of the French-speaking world might affect the French language itself — and the relationship between French and English in Africa, where many countries use both languages?