plaidoyer [WAS: dialectology in linguistics]

[Jonathan Lighter]

A GB search for "plaidoyer" alone "in English" gives me 70,000 hits.  The
first few pages are exclusively in French contexts, even in the case of
books that are written in English.  Since this was an "English"
search that produced overwhelmingly_French_ sources, I suspect yet another
problem with GB.

I hope Damien was not unduly stung by my satire.  It wasn't clear to me who
was the writer of the "plaidoyer" passage, so I'm afraid I was less than my
usually tactful self.

JL



On Fri, Jul 30, 2010 at 11:19 AM, Paul Frank <paulfrank at post.harvard.edu>wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Paul Frank <paulfrank at POST.HARVARD.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: plaidoyer [WAS: dialectology in linguistics]
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> On Fri, Jul 30, 2010 at 1:54 PM, Jonathan Lighter
> <wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Plaidoyer? Ā 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
>
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