Since we are talking about spelling, it is "hors d'œuvre" and not "hors d'oeuvre". On macos: Option + q for œ
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What happened to the n in restaurateur?
41–50 of 74 posts
Re: What happened to the n in restaurateur?
#42This is just begging the question! So "restaurateur" was first, but did "restaurant" get an "n"? Why isn't it "restaurat"? The reason is that in French (ultimately from Latin) "-ateur" means "person who" and "-ant" means roughly "ing". So a "restaurater" is someone who restores and "restaurant" means "restoring" (i.e. a restoring soup, subsequently place).
The verb is restaurer.
Its gerund form is restaurant (ie. transforming a verb into a noun)
Restaurateur is also a noun but its the job associated with the verb, not the verb transformed into a noun directly.
Re: What happened to the n in restaurateur?
#43Earlier quoted context omitted.
The term is recent. Places where you can pay for food are ancient.
I'm not sure about that. Since ancient times there were places where you could pay for food, but that was always a side business of an establishment whose main purpose was either (a) selling alcohol (or, in some places, coffee or tea) or (b) providing lodging for travelers. I suspect that an establishment whose main purpose is selling food to order may be a fairly recent innovation.
It is pretty well accepted that Pompeii had businesses that primarily served prepared food (https://pompeiisites.org/en/comunicati/the-ancient-snack-bar...), so they are at least 2000 years old.
Also, a business that sells meals and also sells lodging or coffee is definitely still a restaurant.
Re: What happened to the n in restaurateur?
#44Since we are talking about spelling, it is "hors d'œuvre" and not "hors d'oeuvre". On macos: Option + q for œ
On a french macOS keyboard, it's option + o, which makes more sense, imho. What does option+o do on yours?
Re: What happened to the n in restaurateur?
#45Earlier quoted context omitted.
I was thinking about that... Is there a distinction between a restaurant where you can order specific dishes (made to order?) vs a place where you just got whatever is available?
In the netherlands we use the french term ‘a la carte’ to mean that the restaurant allows you to pick a pre-defined set of dishes. As opposed to having a daily changing menu with maybe a choice between meat/fish/vegetarian which is called “table d’hote” but the latter has gotten a connotation of being less fancy. So if a fancy restaurant does table d’hote they generally call it ‘our concept’ and explain it to every g…
Degustation and omakase are the preferred fancy words for the chef choosing what you eat, particularly if there's many courses involved.
Re: What happened to the n in restaurateur?
#46Since we are talking about spelling, it is "hors d'œuvre" and not "hors d'oeuvre". On macos: Option + q for œ
On a french macOS keyboard, it's option + o, which makes more sense, imho. What does option+o do on yours?
Option + o yields: ø in the textarea box.
... and then, in my Firefox configuration, unexpectedly navigates me to HN's /show page.
FWIW, Option + O yields: Ø ... and then performs the same navigation.
Re: What happened to the n in restaurateur?
#47Since we are talking about spelling, it is "hors d'œuvre" and not "hors d'oeuvre". On macos: Option + q for œ
FWIW, the only way I now how to do this is:
Press Opt-o, then let go of opt. Then select the œ, which happens to be option 6.
Re: What happened to the n in restaurateur?
#48Earlier quoted context omitted.
The term is recent. Places where you can pay for food are ancient.
I'm not sure about that. Since ancient times there were places where you could pay for food, but that was always a side business of an establishment whose main purpose was either (a) selling alcohol (or, in some places, coffee or tea) or (b) providing lodging for travelers. I suspect that an establishment whose main purpose is selling food to order may be a fairly recent innovation.
Coffee is Ethiopia, came with the Ottomans to Europe, tea came from Chine with the British or the Silk Road. Either of them post dates the Romans.
Re: What happened to the n in restaurateur?
#49Haha - until reading this I thought it was "restaurauteur" like a control-freak film director who makes food. Since most restauraunts don't end up making money it could more appropriately be "restauramateur".
Re: What happened to the n in restaurateur?
#50Earlier quoted context omitted.
Huh, the article immediately suggests a related question to me: > BTW, the feminine version of a restaurateur was “restauratrice.” That makes perfect sense, since the feminine agentive suffix in Latin is -rix. But I thought the feminine agentive ending in French was -euse! Where did we get "masseuse"? Wiktionary suggests that -euse is an alternate equivalent of -rice, derived from Latin -osus (which has no agentive m…
I cannot really come up with a good rule, but I notice that words in -teur seem to have a féminin in -trice (restaura-teur/-trice, ama-teur/-trice, institu-teur/-trice, anima-teur/-trice) while other -eur words seem to prefer -euse (mass-eur/-euse, football-eur/-euse, arnaqu-eur/-euse).
I should note that in Latin the masculine agentive suffix is definitely -or. It may look like -tor, but that -t- is actually a separate element marking the perfect passive participle form. (From which agent nouns are derived.)
Most verbs have a passive participial form that includes the -t-, but in some it's been swallowed by an S. The only example that comes to mind is missus [sent], the passive participle of mittere [send]. The modern French verb is apparently mettre. I guess if the agent nouns are formed from that root, they should be metteur and mettrice? But if they descend from Latin, the masculine form might not use -tt-.
I feel pretty safe in saying that "sender" would be missor in Latin - it's an attested (though "very rare") word - but I have no instinct for what the feminine form would be. Missrix just doesn't feel right.