Speak Like the Brothers Crane
Speak Like the Brothers Crane
Pardon My French
On 5 May 1892, the following announcement appeared in The Harvard Lampoon.
Our artist has depicted the pleasures of these excursions with admirable verve and éclat, together with a soupçon of chic and tolerable adherence to perspective.This quotation proves, beyond a slightest shadow of a doubt, that both Frasier Crane, the eponymous hero of the long-running sitcom Frasier, and, Niles Crane, his equally fictional little brother, acquired the habit of saying soupçon during their undergraduate days in Cambridge.
Derived from the French verb soupçonner, which means ‘suspect’, soupçon signifies ‘suspicion’. However, well before it found a home on the banks of the Charles River, it served as a stand-in for anything slight, subtle, or subdued. Thus, when either of the Doctors Crane tires of asking for ‘whisper’ of cinnamon, he can ask the barista for a soupçon of the aromatic spice.
Should Café Nervosa fail to supply the aforementioned invigorant, the Crane brothers may suspect that the offerings of their favorite caffeinatorium have become jejune. (The caboose on the last sentence, which means ‘without a soupçon of sophistication’ sounds like it ought to come from French, but does not. Indeed, I only include it in this article because, having once spent a very long summer at a large Marine Corps base in North Carolina, I like to make jokes about ‘Camp Jejune’.)
All kidding aside (but not for long), if jejune had been a recent importation from French, it would have been spelled *jejeune, thereby echoing the appearance, as well as the sound, of Lejeune. The latter word, which comes from the French for ‘the young man’, is the surname of the namesake of the aforementioned reservation, Major General John Archer Lejeune, USMC. (Marvelous to say, the building that currently serves as the brick-and-mortar home of Extra Muros once housed the headquarters of that legendary Marine.)
Before we leave the subject of remarkable coincidences, please allow me to mention that three of the Gallicisms beloved by Niles and Frasier Crane - beaux arts, bête noire, and crème de la crème - have already made their debut on Extra Muros.
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