Nine Facts You Need to Know About Le Pétomane

A preface: I am 100 percent not pulling your leg with this. I originally wrote “I am not shitting you,” but that seemed weird given the context and you’ll understand shortly.

One: There really, really was a man who in the late nineteenth century began wowing Parisians crowds with his farts.

Two: Okay, I know, but I swear this is not made up. His stage name, Le Pétomane is a blend of the French verb péter, “to fart,” and a suffix similar to our word maniac, so basically there were French marquees advertising performances by The Fart Monster.

Three: Though it may seem hard to believe, there exist more than one word to refer to this line of work — among them, flatulist, farteur and fartiste.

Four: Le Pétomane achieved his amazing feats of fart not though the means that we common men acquire our farts but through “inhaling” air into his rectum and then expelling it at will.

Five: He discovered this unique ability while swimming in the ocean, when he found that he could suck sea water into his body. And though that seems like a bad idea to invite sea water into any of your orifices, he did it repeatedly, expelling it out in high-pressure bursts to the delight of his chums.

Six: Upon explaining the newfound ability to his doctor, the doctor was all, “Nah, you’re cool.” And then he went merrily tooting on his way, and I mean that literally.

Six: He left his job as a baker to pursue a career onstage. What seems more notable, however, is that he apparently was not forced to abandon his job as a baker because the townspeople stopped buying fart-tainted fart pastries made by The Fart Monster of Fart Street.

Seven: He could allegedly imitate musical instruments. I wonder how well he could actually do this and if his fanny orchestra consisted of more than just horns.

Eight: Le Pétomane quit his career when World War I so saddened him that he no longer saw a value in farting onstage. I find this ironic, because it’s during trying times that a nation needs fart-based entertainment most.

Nine: And the real kicker, to me, would be that Le Pétomane’s given name was Joseph Pujol. It is perhaps the most apt aptronym ever, for what better way to underscore the fact that his path to fame led directly through his butt?

Source: Wikipedia. No, just Wikipedia. I know, I know. I did enough checking to determine that he really did exist, but I actually don’t care if the whole article is the result of an elaborate prank. I got more out of reading it — and then explaining it to you — than I have from most other text I’ve read in recent memory. I’m claiming no journalistic integrity here. I feel I don’t need to, see, because it’s about a man who farted onstage.

Doll of Wax, Doll of Sawdust, Doll of Metaphor

In writing about the accidental ode to oral sex, “Les Sucettes,” it was pointed out to me that another France Gall song merits a mention: the one whose name translates, unfortunately, as “Doll of Wax, Doll of Sawdust.” Believe me, the actual song skews a lot more epic than that title might suggest.

So why is it notable, aside from the stirring sound of it? The Serge Gainsbourg-penned song works on two levels, just like “Les Sucettes” does. On one, Gall is just singing about a doll — a wax-cased doll filled with sawdust, as French children played with back in the day. (Did they? Those poor French children!) However, the French title is Poupée de cire, poupée de son, with son translating as both “sawdust” and “sound.” And even cire, “wax,” is suspect, in that it could be a reference to old-timey waxen records. Thus, even before Serge Gainsbourg demonstrated that he was a masterful behind-the-scenes manipulator with the whole “the song about lollipops is actually about mouth sex” foofaraw, he was feeding his protégé songs that hint at the true nature of their relationship.

Well, that and the fact that he’s one of the few pop songwriters who actually bothered to have fun with the language he was setting to melody.

“The Girl Likes Lozenges. Can You Blame Her?”

The lessons to be learned here: (1) One good ye-ye deserves another, and (2) Serge Gainsbourg had a pervy sense of humor.

Yesterday, I wrote about the French Adele, but in bouncing around online to research that post, I came across a story about another French pop song from the same era — “Les Sucettes,” an ode to lollipops sung in 1966 by France Gall. Yes, that’s her stage name, and yes, it’s just one letter off from France Gaul, which would be the name of the country she’s from and the ancient name for area that country now occupies. Such nationalism! She damn near rivals that airport guy.

And what a face, too. Seeing what she looks like, you shouldn’t be surprised to learn that France Gall was once considered for a live-action musical adaptation of Alice in Wonderland. It failed to materialize after Walt Disney died in 1966, but no worries, because Gall’s career was also stewarded along by Serge Gainsbourg. The same year as Disney’s death, Gainsbourg wrote the song “Les Sucettes” specifically for Gall. The following video resulted.

Let’s take a quick inventory: It’s about sucettes (“lollipops,” but literally “suck-ettes”), the French lollipops of the 60s were flagrantly phallic, cutaways show women who aren’t France Gall cramming lollipops into their mouths and, finally, people wear full-body lollipop costumes that allow them to waggle their long, pointed shafts back and forth. Gainsbourg had transformed Gall into a Lolita. Incredibly, though Gall was nineteen when “Les Sucettes” was released, she claims she was oblivious to all the sexual implications. And though you have to wonder what nunnery could have produced a girl naïve enough that she found nothing suspicious about the lyrics “When the candy stick / With anise flavor / Goes down Annie’s throat,” According to Wikipedia, Gall was so mortified when someone finally pointed out the obvious that she dissolved her successful partnership with Gainsbourg.

And that, friends, is the story of the sweet little French girl who accidentally sang a song about gobbling dongs.

Adele & Adele

With a small number of exceptions, most of us attempting to make a name for ourselves in this pineapple upside-down cake of a world also face a problem in that no matter how hard we work, some idiot with a sex tape or a novelty single or a poorly planned assassination plot could easily render us un-Googleable. Even worse: Even if you did actually become something halfway towards a thing in your day, some idiot with your same name could trot along decades later and wipe you from searchable existence. Hell, it could even be your own descendant, named in honor of how great you were. Oh, the irony.

A few years ago, I came across this amazing song by a singer named Adele. I listened to it again and again, because it resonated with me in a deep way that few songs do. Months later, I learned that Adele was the musical guest on Saturday Night Live and was therefore thrilled. Not only did this indicate that talented performers could get mainstream recognition, but it also meant that Adele was contemporary when everything about her sound made me think she had recorded back in the 60s. Then she took the stage and sang. In English. This was not my Adele. This was the British Adele, whom everyone knows now and who now gets to be an icon for either womanhood or plus-sized womanhood, depending on who’s talking. I actually don’t have a problem with this. Adele has genuine talent, and I wish all pop music could be as good as hers, so if she usurps the title of “that pop singer who’s just named Adele (no last name),” I’m fine with it and won’t make a cruel joke about there genuinely only being room for one Adele in this world.

However, as a result of Adele’s ubiquity, my Adele — the original, French Adele — is far more difficult to research. ‘’ I know her real name was Christine Allegrini and that the song I like — the song that may actually be her only hit — came out in 1966. Like I said, she sings in French, so I don’t actually know what the song is about other than that the title, “J’ai Peur Parfois,” means “Sometimes I Have Fear.” That’s enough, really. The song moves me, comprehensible or not.

(Please note: She actually kind of looks like Now Adele. Could Now Adele possibly be a polyglot time-traveler? Sure, why not?)

Anyway, I thought I’d do what I can for my Adele. What with Francoise Hardy’s “Le temps de l'amour” getting play in the trailer for Moonrise Kingdom and Megan Draper getting radio play with Gillian Hills’s “Zou Bisou Bisou,” there might be an interest in the ye-ye sound — guitar, French songspeak, timid sexuality, a hot chick. I hope there’s also an interest in my Adele too.

Thinking Negatively About Your Body

I knew that silhouette came from some Frenchman’s last name, but if I ever learned the history correctly, then I just forgot it and assumed that Monsieur Silhouette invented the art form. This is apparently not the case.

Most etymologies of silhouette note that Etienne de Silhouette served as the French financial minister in 1759, during the Seven Years’ War. He famously pinched pennies — or whatever the most useless French coin was back then — in order to support the military effort. During this time, the act of cutting black paper in a person’s likeness became a cost-effective alternative to, you know, having them painted or having marble chipped until it looked like them, and the association between Silhouette’s thriftiness and this style of craft has stuck ever since.

silhouette of etienne de silhouette, for all i know. without facial features, it is hard to say

Given where it came from, it’s funny how the word is spoken in English today — silhouette. It’s an inherently beautiful-sounding word, and one spoken often by fashionistas referring to the outermost contour of a given outfit. It is, in this sense, a distillation of beauty — the most superficial level upon which a body could be deemed attractive.

For a moment, however, just focus on what a silhouette is, as far as a black form you might hand on the wall. Given how we think about black and white, it’s a negative space drawing — instead of the black representing a body, the white around it could represent everything outside that body. Now hold onto that, because it’s important. Etymonline gives all the standard background for silhouette but also goes a step further, into what the last name meant before it was attached to penny-pinching, shadows and those portraits you buy at Disneyland. The name comes from Basque. In fact, in its pre-Frenchified state, it may have been Zuloeta, with the -eta meaning “an abundance of” and zulo meaning “cave” or “hole.” If you focus on caves and holes essentially being voids — absences of the materials that surround them — then it’s weirdly appropriate that silhouette has come to mean what it does, because that’s exactly how a silhouette can be read: a lot of empty space.

His Derivative Way

Since learning that Sintra’s standard “My Way” shares its melody with the earlier Claude Francois song “Comme d’habitude,” I’ve bouncing between two conclusion. The first is that it’s ironic a song about living your life the way you chose would be derivative of someone else’s song. The second, on the other hand, is that it’s actually fitting that Sinatra’s song took someone else’s musical blueprints and built it up into someone else that became more famous than the original and ultimately more closely identified with him than it was with Francois.

Either way, it sounds wrong to hear someone else singing the song in the “wrong” language and with the “wrong” lyrics.

Also, Paul Anka wrote the English lyrics, so if anything it’s Paul’s way. I’d like to believe that Frank Sinatra was never told that his song wasn’t the original — and if he found out today, he’d be punching dames in heaven.

The Dainty Pig and the Musical Goose

A long overdue update to My Big List of Strange and Wonderful Words. See? I’m still learning stuff.

pettitoes (PETT-ee-tohz) — noun: pig’s trotters, especially when used as food.

Cute word, right? Can’t you just picture Babe flitting across Hogget’s farm on pettitoes to the sound of a trilling xylophone? You can? Great. Now imagine those porcine tootsies lopped off and sent to a butcher’s case. That’s where pigs’ feet go to await some hungry hausfrau hoping to use them to make stock or gravy.

Just looking at the word pettitoes, you might think the etymology is obvious, what with petty coming from the French petit, “small,” and being used in English to mean essentially a derogatory version of the same thing. But it’s that second part, toes, that’s surprising. The word comes to English from the French term petit oie, meaning “little goose” and referring to that bird’s giblets. Apparently the term jumped from giblets to all manner of offal and then finally to pigs’ feet. I haven’t seen it stated specifically, but I assume the change in spelling and definition resulted from English speakers hearing the word and assuming it meant what it sounded like. At least one etymology book, however, simply sites that the word always referred to feet, but I’m willing to guess that the majority of sites offering the goose-to-pig switch have it correct.

One more bit on the French word ire, meaning “goose.” It’s related to Italian word for for the bird, oca, whose diminutive form is ocarina. The instrument — which nowadays is unknown to all but Legend of Zelda fans — is so named because its shape was thought to resemble that of a goose. Now you can tell your ocarina band all about this and sound extra cool.

See previous strange and wonderful words after the jump.

• acné excoriée des jeunes filles, adulterine, ageusia, ambeer, anosmia
• barrack, bissextile, bloofer, breastsummer
• catholicon, cecaelia, cherpumple, chilver, cockernonnie, coprolalia, couvade, cranberry morpheme, crwth, culaccino, cummingtonite
• deasil, decussate, deuteragonist, dingbat, dingle
• eidolon, epeolatry, epopt, espalier, etui, exoterica
• fabiform, Feghoot, fissilingual, Föhnkrankheit, folderol, froward
• gallinipper, grandgore, grue, guilloche, gyaru
• hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliophobia, hogo, honorificabilitudinitatibus
• ignivomous, iracund, isabelline, itaiitai
• jabroni, jamais vu, jehu, jumentous
• kaffir, kakopygian, kayfabe, knipperdollin
• leman, lemniscate, limnovore, linsey-woolsey, longicorn
• malacia, malison, milt, mongo, mooncalf, morepork, muzjiks
• narrenfreiheit, nef, nihilartikel, nobiliary particle, nosism
• ochanee, ogonek, ombré, ooglification, orchidectomy, ordured, orf
• pace, pareidolia, pavonated, perendiate, perigee, petrichor, pettifogger, phlegmagogue, pismire, pogonip, pong, pruniferous, puggle, pulveratricious, purse
• quacksalver, quagga, qualtagh, quidnunc
• ronion, roynish, rubirosa, rumpsprung, runcible
• salmagundi, scrutator, seneschal, shebang, sinople, stan, stevedore, suovetaurilia
• tappen, teratogenesis, tergiversate, tetromino, thagomizer, thon, tiffin, tittery-whoppet, tmesis, toby, tutoyer, tyro
• ucalegon, ultramontane, umiaq, umquhile
• veneficial, verdigris, vespertilionine, vinegeroon
• weeaboo, widdiful, williwaw, witzelsucht, wooper looper
• xenodocheionology, xyster
• yazoo, ypsiliform, yoink
• zanjero, zenzizenzizenzic, zinnober, zugzwang

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The Terrible Fate of Mrs. Crunch

I have no problem with the croque-monsieur.

In fact, I think this miracle of comfort cuisine improves upon the already splendid grilled cheese sandwich with the addition of ham and, possibly, delicious sauce. Let me make this as clear as possible right now: I’m pro-croque-monsieur and anti-anyone who might happen to be anti-croque-monsieur.

My objection is with this particular monsieur’s “wife,” the croque-madame. (Literally, her name means “Mrs. Crunch.”) My problem has nothing to do with her taste, really. Like her husband, she’s all hot ham, melted cheese and toasted bread, only the she benefits from the the notable (and sensible!) addition of a fried egg on top. Its in this that I find the problem: When you think about it, the fact that the difference between a monsieur and a madame would be an egg is, at the very least, suggestive. The fact that the egg would be fried and laid upon her is, at any extent, cruel. And I can’t help but to feel that she’s suffered a great indignity. You know, on top of being eaten. People have been brought up on war crime charges for less.

I mean, I’m still going to eat Mrs. Crunch. I just wish that the difference between the monsieur and the madame was, like, a tomato slice or basil or something. And yes, I’d eat those sandwiches as well.

This Is Between You and Me

Today, the word of the week is a handy, French term that I first encountered on the blog A Walk in the Words, which I found when one of its featured the word longicorn and cited my blog as the source. A reciprocal move seemed appropriate, and this word fit the spirit of polite give-and-take.

tutoyer (too-twa-YAY) — verb: to address familiarly

If you’re at all familiar with Romance languages, you could have guessed that this was a verb. Its components, however, are the French pronouns tu, “thou,” and toi, “thee” — that is, the informal forms of the you in the nominative and accusative cases. So, literally, this word means something like “thou-thee-ing somebody.” But given that English no longer uses thou except in old phrases (such as holier-than-thou) and instances in which formality is needed (such as Star Wars’s “What is thy bidding, my master?”), I’m not sure that explanation gets the point across. So try this: Tutoyer is the “Hey, buddy” of verbs, the “All right, listen, lady” you’d use when it seems inappropriate to say, “If you don’t mind the intrusion, madam.”

Since I’m on the subject of you and thou, I’ll point out that the transition away from separate, singular and plural second-person pronouns is interesting, at least to me. It was French influence that flattened these terms into just one, all-around usage. French has polite and impolite pronouns, tu for your drinking buddy but vous for, like, your boss or the king or God. As a result, tu and its related forms can sound rude or even condescending. This rule got mapped onto English, and you became a safer bet than thou. It’s ironic, then, that thou today has an air of formality, history, ceremony and nobility. Personally, I think English would benefit from an accepted plural, second-person pronoun, since you can be confusing as a result of this lack. And y’all elicits weird reactions when you don’t have a Southern accent. If only youse guys would catch on.

Previous strange and wonderful words:

• acné excoriée des jeunes filles, adulterine, ageusia, ambeer, anosmia
• barrack, bissextile, bloofer, breastsummer
• catholicon, cecaelia, cherpumple, couvade, cranberry morpheme, crwth, culaccino, cummingtonite
• deasil, decussate, deuteragonist, dingle
• eidolon, epeolatry, epopt, espalier, etui
• fabiform, fissilingual, Föhnkrankheit, folderol, froward
• gallinipper, grandgore, grue, guilloche, gyaru
• hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliophobia, hogo, honorificabilitudinitatibus
• ignivomous, iracund, isabelline, itaiitai
• jabroni, jamais vu, jehu, jumentous
• kaffir, kakopygian, kayfabe, knipperdollin
• leman, lemniscate, limnovore, linsey-woolsey, longicorn
• malacia, malison, milt, mongo, morepork
• narrenfreiheit, nef, nihilartikel, nobiliary particle, nosism
• ochanee, ogonek, ombré, ooglification, orchidectomy, ordured, orf
• pace, pareidolia, pavonated, perendiate, petrichor, pismire, pogonip, pong, pruniferous, puggle, pulveratricious, purse
• quacksalver, quagga, qualtagh, quidnunc
• ronion, roynish, rubirosa, rumpsprung
• salmagundi, scrutator, seneschal, shebang, sinople, stevedore, suovetaurilia
• tappen, teratogenesis, tergiversate, tetromino, thagomizer, thon, tiffin, tittery-whoppet, tmesis, toby, tyro
• ucalegon, ultramontane, umquhile
• veneficial, verdigris, vespertilionine, vinegeroon
• weeaboo, williwaw, witzelsucht, wooper looper
• xenodocheionology, xyster
• yazoo, ypsiliform, yoink
• zanjero, zenzizenzizenzic, zinnober, zugzwang

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The Nouns of Young Girls

My pick for word of the week is acne-related.

acné excoriée des jeunes filles (ak-neh ecks-ko-ree-ay day joonz fee) — noun: a self-inflicted skin condition resulting from a person’s habit of picking at either real or imagined blemishes, ultimately worsening the quality of the skin.

Translated into English, the term means something like “the acne of young girls,” though the verb excorier is related to the English excoriate, meaning “to wear the skin of,” “to flay,” or “to denounce.” I love that this term exists and that it namechecks the kind of insecure girl who would stand in a mirror and press and stress their face in an effort to rid it of a single blackhead, only to spread the infection and cause a worse blemish than if they had simply done nothing.

But I chose acne excoriée des jeunes filles not only because it’s so wonderfully specific and evocative but also because the thing it describes can be metaphorically extended beyond the world of teens wracked by the horrors of puberty. Really, who can’t relate to the notion of a thing being made worse by virtue of it being fussed over — squeezed and prodded into an otherwise avoidable state of irritation?

Previous strange and wonderful words:

• adulterine, ageusia, ambeer, anosmia
• barrack, bissextile, bloofer, breastsummer
• catholicon, cecaelia, couvade, cranberry morpheme, crwth, cummingtonite
• deasil, decussate, deuteragonist, dingle
• eidolon, epeolatry, epopt, espalier, etui
• fabiform, fissilingual, Föhnkrankheit, folderol, froward
• gallinipper, grandgore, grue, guilloche, gyaru
• hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliophobia, hogo, honorificabilitudinitatibus
• ignivomous, isabelline, itaiitai
• jabroni, jamais vu, jehu, jumentous
• kaffir, kakopygian, knipperdollin
• leman, lemniscate, limnovore, linsey-woolsey, longicorn
• malacia, malison, milt, mongo, morepork
• narrenfreiheit, nef, nihilartikel, nobiliary particle, nosism
• ogonek, ombré, ooglification, orchidectomy, ordured, orf
• pace, pareidolia, pavonated, petrichor, pismire, pong, puggle, pulveratricious, purse
• quacksalver, quagga, qualtagh, quidnunc
• ronion, roynish, rubirosa
• salmagundi, scrutator, seneschal, shebang, sinople, stevedore, suovetaurilia
• teratogenesis, tergiversate, thagomizer, thon, tiffin, tittery-whoppet, tmesis, toby, tyro
• ucalegon, ultramontane
• veneficial, verdigris, vespertilionine, vinegeroon
• williwaw, witzelsucht, wooper looper
• xenodocheionology, xyster
• yazoo, ypsiliform, yoink
• zanjero, zenzizenzizenzic, zinnober, zugzwang

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Find the Hidden Galoshes on the U.S. Dollar Bill!

Most of my words-of-the-week tend to be ones normal people would never use, either because these words refer to obscure things or because a more familiar term already exists. However, I occasionally offer words for things that you might encounter on a daily basis but which you did not realize have specific names. Those — the “There’s a word for that?” posts — are probably my favorites. And this is one.

guilloche (gi-LOHSH or GEE-yohsh, with either one rhyming with brioche) — noun: : 1. an architectural ornament formed of two or more interlaced bands with openings containing round devices. 2. a pattern (as on metalwork) made by interlacing curved lines.

It’s that second definition that should be notable to anyone whose exchanged American paper currency for goods or services, as guilloche can refer to that intricate “webbing” pattern that appears in the background of the various dollar notes. (Hat tip to Kottke.) I would have guessed that the second definition referred to mechanical, hand-directed processes, but apparently these designs are today more likely created by feeding mathematical formulas into computers.

Now get lost in some guillocity.

The etymology of guilloche seems to be debated. (It’s one of the first words-of-the-week in a long time to not have an entry at Online Etymology Dictionary.) The American Heritage Dictionary says the term comes from either the French word for the tool used to make this type of ornamentation or from the French guillochis, which, confusingly, seems to mean “guilloche.” This Merriam-Webster etymology gives only guillochis, but a different Webster definition cited by the less reliable yourdictionary.com traces the history back to Latin: from guillochis to the French guillocher, “to ornament with lines,” to the Old Italian ghiocciare, “to drop or drip” and ultimately to the Latin gutta, “a drop.” Wikipedia’s article on guilloche (or, rather, guilloché) claims the term comes from a French engraver Guillot, who invented the technique. Finally, dictionary.com — which isn’t exactly trustworthy — reports the Collins Dictionary — which I’ve never heard of before — states that guilloche could trace back to the French name Guillaume, “William.” So make of that what you will.

Fun fact: Have you ever tried to scan a dollar bill? Oh, the fun little threatening messages you get when you do that. Also: “Encyclopedia Drew and the Case of the Mixed-Up Currency”and the purported history of the U.S. dollar sign.

Previous strange and wonderful words:

• adulterine, ageusia, ambeer, anosmia
• barrack, bissextile, bloofer, breastsummer
• catholicon, cecaelia, couvade, cranberry morpheme, crwth, cummingtonite
• deasil, decussate, deuteragonist, dingle
• eidolon, epeolatry, epopt, espalier, etui
• fabiform, fissilingual, Föhnkrankheit, folderol, froward
• gallinipper, grandgore, grue, gyaru
• hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliophobia, hogo, honorificabilitudinitatibus
• itaiitai, ignivomous
• jabroni, jamais vu, jehu, jumentous
• kaffir, kakopygian, knipperdollin
• leman, lemniscate, limnovore, linsey-woolsey, longicorn
• malacia, malison, milt, mongo, morepork
• nef, nihilartikel, nobiliary particle, nosism
• ombré, ooglification, orchidectomy, ordured, orf
• pace, pareidolia, pavonated, petrichor, pismire, pong, puggle, purse
• quacksalver, quagga, qualtagh, quidnunc
• ronion, roynish, rubirosa
• salmagundi, scrutator, seneschal, shebang, sinople, stevedore, suovetaurilia
• tergiversate, thagomizer, thon, tiffin, tittery-whoppet, tmesis, toby, tyro
• ucalegon, ultramontane
• veneficial, verdigris, vespertilionine, vinegeroon
• williwaw, witzelsucht, wooper looper
• xenodocheionology, xyster
• yazoo, ypsiliform, yoink
• zanjero, zenzizenzizenzic, zinnober, zugzwang

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The Ghost of a Color

I watch Top Chef and Project Runway not because I want Padma to make mean faces at me or Heidi to tell me my design looks sad, but instead because I enjoy observing the processes of creative people. I like hearing the contestants explain how they arrived at their good ideas or, more often, listening as they talk themselves into pursuing a crap idea.

But another plus for me is the jargon — those weird words that the contestants spit out as if the American public will know what the hell they’re talking about. Sometimes we can tell by context. Sometimes we actually have no way of decoding a given sentence and figuring out what the strange French term means. (And, yes, whether it’s cooking or clothes, many of these words happen to be French, which is doubly difficult for me because I am terrible at guessing how French words might be spelled.) You’d better believe I get pissed when they don’t display the words on screen — when a Top Chefer, for example, boasts that they will “[unfamiliar French verb] some vegetables and meat to make a [unfamiliar noun — French? Arabic? Space language?]” and the chyron dumbs it down as “stew.”

Anyway, this week I had reason to learn a fashion term, though not from Project Runway, which most recently focused on party supplies and Betsey Johnson being a loopier real-life version of Janice from The Muppets. (I liked the episode anyway.) And this fashion term is happens to be the word of the week.

ombré (AHM-bray or ahm-BRAY) — 1. adjective: having colors or tones that shade into each other — used especially of fabrics in which the color is graduated from light to dark. 2. noun: the design resulting from this technique.

As I understand it, an ombré effect can result from either dip-dyeing a completed garment or weaving colored fabrics in a way that gradually blends and then switches out one color for another. Whatever the process, the result looks something like this:

(image source)

No, not like a model wearing a loaded high-fashion diaper, but the fade from white to cyan to gray. To put it in color terms I’m more familiar with, ombré looks like someone selected the space of the garment and filled it with a Photoshop color gradient. Neat, I suppose, in that it seems to strip down the tie-dye aesthetic and elevate it beyond the hippie ghetto. (And in fashion, the hippie ghetto is a bad place to be.) However, it seems like a technique that would only look good on women’s clothes. I at least can’t imagine owning or wearing anything with a color fade.

The word comes from the past participle of the French ombrer, “to shade,” which goes back to the Latin umbra, “shade.” (Umbra also gives English the word umbrella. Translated literally from Italian, umbrella means “little shade,” which is exactly what the instrument provides even though English speakers call a sun-blocking umbrella a parasol, literally “sun-shield.”) The noun form of the French word, ombre, means “shade” or “darkness” but also “ghost.” This usage parallels English’s treatment of the word shade. And I like this too, because ombré reminds me of pentimento, the instance of a previously painted-over image becoming visible beneath a finished work, whether as a result of an x-ray or time thinning the top level of paint. The extra image appears ghostly — and truly would be spooky, if you noticed a transparent figure appearing in a painting where none stood before. I’m not sure if I prefer the idea of ombré being the lighter color gradually shining through the darker one or the darker one slowly swallowing up the lighter one.

Of course, ombré also happens to sound a lot like the Spanish word hombre, which is funny because ombré is this soft, feminine thing and an hombre is a gun-slinging dude walking into a saloon in a spaghetti western. In fact, there’s a relative in the name of the card game called ombre — it’s what Belinda plays in Rape of the Lock — and if you try to read about ombré on Wikipedia you just get directed to the article that starts with this image:

And that’s even worse than a high-fashion diaper.

Previous strange and wonderful words:

• adulterine, ageusia, ambeer, anosmia
• barrack, bissextile, bloofer, breastsummer
• catholicon, cecaelia, couvade, cranberry morpheme, crwth, cummingtonite
• deasil, decussate, deuteragonist, dingle
• eidolon, epeolatry, epopt, espalier, etui
• fabiform, fissilingual, Föhnkrankheit, folderol, froward
• gallinipper, grandgore, grue, gyaru
• hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliophobia, honorificabilitudinitatibus
• itaiitai, ignivomous
• jabroni, jamais vu, jehu, jumentous
• kaffir, kakopygian, knipperdollin
• leman, lemniscate, limnovore, linsey-woolsey, longicorn
• malacia, malison, milt, mongo, morepork
• nef, nihilartikel, nobiliary particle, nosism
• ooglification, orchidectomy, ordured, orf
• pace, pareidolia, pavonated, petrichor, pismire, pong, puggle, purse
• quacksalver, quagga, qualtagh, quidnunc
• ronion, roynish, rubirosa
• salmagundi, scrutator, seneschal, shebang, sinople, stevedore, suovetaurilia
• tergiversate, thagomizer, thon, tiffin, tittery-whoppet, tmesis, toby, tyro
• ucalegon, ultramontane
• veneficial, verdigris, vespertilionine, vinegeroon
• williwaw, witzelsucht, wooper looper
• xenodocheionology, xyster
• yazoo, ypsiliform, yoink
• zanjero, zenzizenzizenzic, zinnober, zugzwang

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