St. Louis?

[Michael Mccafferty]

I checked with two native speakers of French, one from Quebec and one from
France, a few months ago concerning the possibility that "Pain Court"
could mean "short of bread". The Quebec speaker is an expert in historic
New World French terminology and the other is a well-informed professor of
French language. Both said that, although one could say "a` court de pain"
(short of bread), as in "Je suis a` court de pain" (I'm short of bread),
it is impossible for "Pain Court" to mean that.

Again, this "short of bread" thing is a folk-etymology. (Bob Hall, cited
earlier for his work on this place name and for its meaning "short of
bread," is a good archaeologist, but I don't trust his work, necessarily,
outside of his field. I have a paper coming out in the fall on Bob's work
concerning Jean Nicollet and the Hochunk. It doesn't sing any praises.)

Michael

On Tue, 30 Mar 2004, Anthony Grant wrote:

> Apparently, according to Allan, because bread was in short supply there.  But his explanation of the name struck me as ill-formed in French when I first read the article soe years back (in your sitting room!) and it still strikes me as junk.  Maybe if they made bread in in short loaves rather than in baguettes, that would be feasible.
>
> 'Shortening' and thereby 'shortbread' has nothing to do qwith shortness; shortening means mixing fat into dough. | 'Shortnin' Bread' may lie behind the 1959 #1 hit 'The Happy Organ' by Dave 'Baby' Cortez (which never got anywhere in the UK).
>
> Anthony
>
> >>> pankihtamwa at earthlink.net 29/03/2004 19:11:51 >>>
> Yes, but WHY was St. Louis called 'short bread'? That was what I was
> wondering.
>
> David
>
>
> > Pain Court means "short bread".
> >
> > There is a folk-etymology roaming around (perhaps in the article
> > referenced below) that says that the term means "short of bread".
> > But that's just what it is.
> >
> > The name means "short bread". I believe the name occurs elsewhere in
> > the Francophone word, maybe in Ontario. It is not a surname as far as I
> > know.
> >
> > Michael
> >
> >
> >
> > On Mon, 29 Mar 2004, David Costa wrote:
> >
> >> All I know about the name for St. Louis in Algonquian is that the Shawnee
> >> name for it is peenhko (Gatschet's <pÍ'nk*>), and the Mesquakie form is
> >> pe:ko:neki (a locative). These are apparently borrowings from French 'Pain
> >> Court'. However, it's been so long since I thought about this, I can't
> >> remember at the moment why it was named after 'Pain Court', or what 'Pain
> >> Court' really meant. I think somewhere there's an article that explains
> >> this. Bob, does this ring a bell?
> >>
> >> Dave Costa
> >>
> >> >
> >> > I'm wondering about the name for St. Louis in native languages.  For OP,
> >> > Dorsey has Ppa'hi-z^i'de, "Red Neck", as a term for the inhabitants.
> >> > Fletcher and La Flesche give Ppahi'-z^ide ttoNwoN, "Red Hair town", with
> >> > the note "Referring to the color of Governor Clark's hair".  I've had it in
> >> > mind that the latter explanation was confirmed by the Osage form, but I
> >> > can't seem to find a reference.  Can anyone point me to further information
> >> > on this?  I'd be especially interested knowing the name for it in Osage,
> >> > Kaw, Iowa-Oto, or even Algonquian languages.
> >> >
> >
> >
> >
>
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