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Foreign Phrases Used In English


Baburra

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I decided to look up forte in the OED (Oxford English Dictionary [not to be confused the the Oxford Dictionary of English], a scholarly etymological/historical dictionary), and it has TWO etymologies!

The noun forte, meaning a person's strong point, is from French but incorrectly spelled in a feminine form. The dictionary says this:

Etymology:  < French fort, absolute use of fort strong: see fort adj. As in many other adoptions of French adjectives used as nouns, the feminine form has been ignorantly substituted for the masculine; compare locale, morale (of an army), etc.

The adjective forte, used in music for "loud" is from Italian "forte" meaning strong or loud. This is one you see a lot if you read sheet music (though it's often just denoted f.).

Both versions come originally from the Latin fortis meaning strong.

So everyone's right. It's from French, and Italian, and the French etymology is indeed weird ("ignorant" to use the OED's wording).

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I think English speaking people just like the accent from certain phrase in other languages or they are just around people that use these terms all the time so they use them as well.One that I always use is "gesundheit".

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  • 2 weeks later...

It appears that a lot of loan words are from French origins. The word "A la Carte" would be one, and it's not just used in English but I think it is used globally as you normally see this term in restaurants around the world.

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