plaidoyer [WAS: dialectology in linguistics]

[Paul Frank]

On Fri, Jul 30, 2010 at 1:54 PM, Jonathan Lighter
<wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com> wrote:

> Plaidoyer? Â Impressive. (Research shows it's French for "plea.")
>
> GB turns up no previous uses in English, though there are some recent ones
> on line.
>
> I suppose one could argue that "plea" sounds desperate and inferior while
> "plaidoyer" (if you know what it means) sounds dignified, worldly-wise, and
> confident.
>
> Unless you're French.
>
> (Another possibility - that it sounds pretentious and absurd and
> intentionally mystifying - need not be discussed.)
>
> (A computer glitch, i.e. human error, sent this formerly two-part messge to
> Damien only.)
>
> JL

I missed the beginning of this thread so that's one reason I ought to
keep my mouth shut (there are others, such as the fact that I'm not a
linguist). But anyways:

My mind is corrupted by French, because speak French with my wife and
I live in a French-speaking canton. Plaidoyer is a normal French word.
But I'm sure I've read it more than a few times in English in the
sense of an impassioned (or grandiloquent) plea and particularly a
defense plea or a lawyer's summation in a court of law.

The string +plaidoyer +lawyer yields 437 GB hits. The string
+plaidoyer +counsel spits out 613 hits. The string +plaidoyer +because
gives 2,410 results. I'm guessing that more than 90% of those hits are
from English-language books.

For for all I know plaidoyer is more common in British than in
American English. I would avoid the word in English.

Paul


Paul Frank
Translator
German, French, Italian > English
Rue du Midi 1, Aigle, Switzerland
paulfrank at post.harvard.edu
paul.frank at bfs.admin.ch

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org