Quell'

[RonButters at AOL.COM]

In a message dated 8/31/2002 1:28:38 PM, dave at WILTON.NET writes:

<< I was watching an episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer tonight (Writer:
Marti
Noxon, Episode: "Wild At Heart," 1999) and was perplexed by a slang usage.
Buffy says of a female singer, "She's quell' Fiona. Color me bored." I
gathered from the context that Buffy meant the singer's style was derivative
of pop singer Fiona Apple. "Quell'" was what was confusing me. Finally, I
guessed that it was a clipped form of the German quelle (source) or
quellenforshung (study of influences on a work).

Has anyone run into "quell'" used in this fashion elsewhere? Is it an actual
slang term or is it a one-time coinage of the scriptwriter? >>

Sounds more like the origin is French, as in "Quel dommage!" 'Such a pity!'
(cf. the old language-learners joke, "Quel fromage!"). It seems to me that
there is a natural semantic sequence here from 'what a/such' to 'very'.

In fact, it seems to me that I have heard this before, but maybe that is just
because it seems so natural for people who are just learning French.