TINAPA: "Coup de Gras"

There are misused words that drive me absolutely dilly; hence my introduction of 'TINAWA' (That Is Not A Word Asshole!) last year. One gets assaulted so often by them that one is almost numbed to it, whether they come flying out from e-mails, on the Web, or (my absolute pet peeve) even in supposedly reputable newspapers and TV stations (just unacceptable!).

But there are also phrases that also get mangled to an inch of their poor lives; hence my need to introduce 'TINAPA' (That Is Not A Phrase Asshole!).

I know - the use of the word 'asshole' is very déclassé of me, but I just can't help it, such is the impact on me when the English language is needlessly trashed - again and again and again...(and why the hell is Blogger underlining the word 'déclassé' as if it were incorrect?! Count to 10, Vittorio...)

My first TINAPA goes to one that crops up all over the place, and is one of my pet peeves - the use of a foreign phrase as if trying to be clever or sophisticated. I really hate those, because when a foreign phrase is ill-used all the person lands up sounding like is a clueless twat and rube.

Enter the phrase 'coup de gras'...used here in South Africa with wild, reckless abandon - especially reckless abandon, because there's no such phrase.

Which basically translates from the French into 'a stroke or blow of fat' - huh? Exactly.

It's coup de grâce, my little ones at sea, meaning a death blow or a decisive or finishing blow or flourish.



 I think some people actually know how the phrase is spelled, yet assume that every last syllable in every single word in the French language must somehow always be silent...those pesky French and their inability to pronounce a word in its entirety! Which is how grâce mutates into gras, I guess...

This from the mouths of the countless proles that shuffle all around me I can (just barely) excuse, but from journalists, politicians and other people who should know better...it's simply inexcusable.

I know how difficult it is for some users of an Anglo-Saxon language to reconcile themselves with the fact that French was once the lingua franca of the civilized world, but that's what has made English such a rich language, grabbing words from all over the globe, bless it's poaching heart. But it's poaching we're talking about, not hacking.

"Coup de gras" be gone!