À la Mode and Démodé
Pardon My French
Pardon My French is a lighthearted guide to words of French origin that, whether by stowing away in the ship that delivered the Statue of Liberty or riding the Eurostar through the Chunnel, somehow managed to sneak into the English language. You can find other posts in this series by means of this aggregator.
There comes a time in every woman’s life when saying “that’s so five minutes ago” loses its charm. In the long years that follow, every encounter with sartorial obsolescence presents her with the choice between using the word démodé and saying “will someone please shoot that man’s tailor.” (Unless one is larping as Dorothy Parker, cloche and all, I recommend the former.)
In the Francophone world, the opposite of démodé is à la mode. In l’Anglophonie, the latter expression means “with ice cream on top.” While usually conjoined with “pie,” the phrase has been used, often with tongue planted firmly in cheek, to indicate that the item in question, comestible or not, wears a hat made of our planet’s favorite frozen desert.
In 1912, an executive of a company that manufactured blocks of ice (of the type delivered by ice men for use in ice boxes) amused his dinner guests by serving them “ice à la mode.” While begun as a joke, this manner of presentation enjoyed a brief summer of fashionability, before, like the snows of yesteryear, going the way of the turkey trot.1
Note: The links will take you to a translation program, whether Google Translate or DeepL, where a well-spoken robot will voice the word or phrase in question.
“Ice Cream à la Mode” Industrial Refrigeration (April 1912) page 261