Minneapolis malady sauce
malaise noun:
1. A vague feeling of discomfort in the body, as at the onset of illness.2. A general feeling of depression or unease.
Malaise comes from the French, from Old French mal, "bad, ill" + aise, "comfort, ease."
This popped up today at work as the word of the day. Initially I thought of Malaria (literally "bad air"). But this was just a brief connection. What quickly took over for me was the suffix,
-aise.
Malaria was quickly replaced with Mayonaise in my mind and just as suddenly I was thinking of Nye's Polynase, a wonderfull bar in Minneapolis that a friend recommended I try out while visiting another friend who was living there at the time. I was always puzzled by the name of the place. And, now, I had the answer! Poly as in "many" and Naise as in "comfort, ease." Well, sorta.
See, a misunderstanding of the constituent parts of mayonaise is what I think what went into making polynaise a word. I think they erroneously carried the n over with the aise as part of the suffix for comfort.
Ok, maybe not but it sort of makes sense considering the place. More likely it's just a varient spelling of polonaise.
polonaise noun
1. a slow dance of Polish origin, in triple meter, consisting chiefly of a march or promenade in couples.
2. a piece of music for, or in the rhythm of, such a dance.
[Origin: 1765–75; < F, fem. of polonais Polish, equiv. to Polon- (< ML Polonia Poland) + -ais -ese]
Anyways, the word mayonaise has a bit of a clouded past itself at least in regards to the origins of the word. The Random House Unabridged Dictionary states:
[Origin: 1835–45; <>
However, The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition is more cautious:
[French mahonnaise, mayonnaise, possibly from Mahón, Spanish city on Minorca captured by Louis François Armand de Vignerot du Plessis, Duc de Richelieu (1696-1788), in 1756 (the duke's chef is said to have introduced mayonnaise in honor of this victory).]
While the origins of the term are dubious both have the morphological suffix without the initial consonant. Even though it is pronounced with the n at the start of the last syllable there is no morphological reason for it to be there, though most likely a phonetic reason.
The wikipedia has a very interesting section on the origins of the word which seems to make a case that both of the two above etymologies are incorrect. Then again, it is the Wikipedia
1. A vague feeling of discomfort in the body, as at the onset of illness.2. A general feeling of depression or unease.
Malaise comes from the French, from Old French mal, "bad, ill" + aise, "comfort, ease."
This popped up today at work as the word of the day. Initially I thought of Malaria (literally "bad air"). But this was just a brief connection. What quickly took over for me was the suffix,
-aise.
Malaria was quickly replaced with Mayonaise in my mind and just as suddenly I was thinking of Nye's Polynase, a wonderfull bar in Minneapolis that a friend recommended I try out while visiting another friend who was living there at the time. I was always puzzled by the name of the place. And, now, I had the answer! Poly as in "many" and Naise as in "comfort, ease." Well, sorta.
See, a misunderstanding of the constituent parts of mayonaise is what I think what went into making polynaise a word. I think they erroneously carried the n over with the aise as part of the suffix for comfort.
Ok, maybe not but it sort of makes sense considering the place. More likely it's just a varient spelling of polonaise.
polonaise noun
1. a slow dance of Polish origin, in triple meter, consisting chiefly of a march or promenade in couples.
2. a piece of music for, or in the rhythm of, such a dance.
[Origin: 1765–75; < F, fem. of polonais Polish, equiv. to Polon- (< ML Polonia Poland) + -ais -ese]
Anyways, the word mayonaise has a bit of a clouded past itself at least in regards to the origins of the word. The Random House Unabridged Dictionary states:
[Origin: 1835–45; <>
However, The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition is more cautious:
[French mahonnaise, mayonnaise, possibly from Mahón, Spanish city on Minorca captured by Louis François Armand de Vignerot du Plessis, Duc de Richelieu (1696-1788), in 1756 (the duke's chef is said to have introduced mayonnaise in honor of this victory).]
While the origins of the term are dubious both have the morphological suffix without the initial consonant. Even though it is pronounced with the n at the start of the last syllable there is no morphological reason for it to be there, though most likely a phonetic reason.
The wikipedia has a very interesting section on the origins of the word which seems to make a case that both of the two above etymologies are incorrect. Then again, it is the Wikipedia
posted by Hiro at 7:33 PM
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