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Chris -- 2018-04-11
The lorgnette is that small pair of binoculars, sometimes with a handle, that women with bouffant hair used to examine others at the opera, in the days before they started letting the rabble in. Opera glasses. To lorgne, in French, I’ve just learned, means to ogle, to spy, to set one’s eye upon. For all I know, this is a play on the word “lunette”, which was first a telescope, and then was used for eyeglasses (I’ll have to check the etymology of that).
Online auction sites are proving to be a rich source of eggcorns for words outside one’s customary purview. On nine different auction sites, the lorgnette has become longettes, presumably because it extends your vision. More abundant, about 20 ughits, is longnettes, and most common, longnette.
Spanish auction site
Longettes (Opera glasses) French: Pair of French mother of pearl Longettes, handle can be extended.
Antiques and objects of vertu
Victorian yellow metal longettes, the case engraved with acanthus scrolls.
Gunsmoke moments
But Kitty’s “mature” position, very properly holding a longnette while reading the paper – well that just set it up perfectly.
Last edited by David Bird (2010-05-04 21:38:22)
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I’ll have to check the etymology of that
Where DO you check French etymologies?
Hatching new language, one eggcorn at a time.
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There are a couple of old etymological sources available for download, the most useful being Le Dictionnaire d’étymologie française d’après les résultats de la science moderne , by Auguste Scheler, from 1888. Otherwise, I use the Petit Robert, which has etymologies. Unfortunately, like the OED, it’s not available online.
The small Robert confirms the connection between lorgnette and lunette, that the former was based on the latter. Otherwise, further checking showed that a lunette was first a small round window to admit daylight, or a round mirror, before becoming a round glass, and then glasses. Lorgne is more complicated than indicated above; it originally meant to be affected by strabismus, to have the eyes not aligned. So today it would be translated as “to look out of the corner of one’s eye at”. This gives the sense to lorgnette that it will be used to assess others without being observed to do so.
Edit: Just found another interesting source that can be accessed on line, here . They do say to pay great attention to the etymologies here, which are sometimes pure fantasy, which increases its interest for this forum.
Last edited by David Bird (2010-05-05 11:00:45)
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Thanks for the links, David. I had a Petit Robert, but it I don’t see it on my shelves. Probably got lost in one of my moves. Perhaps it’s time to invest in another one.
Hatching new language, one eggcorn at a time.
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