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PANACHE

Posted: Sun Jan 13, 2013 11:17 pm
by Dr. Goodword

• panache •

Pronunciation: pê-næshHear it!

Part of Speech: Noun

Meaning: 1. A plume of feathers, especially in a hat or helmet. 2. Dash, flamboyance, verve.

Notes: Today's word is a near-orphan. One rarely used adjective, panached, indicates a set of multi-colored stripes, such as panached pansies, since panaches in helmets and hats were multi-colored. Don't forget that the [sh] sound comes from the French pronunciation of CHE.

In Play: In the 19th and early 20th centuries Native Americans of the plains were notable for their colorful panaches in the original sense, but Europeans of that age loved them, too: "When I was young, the most elegant of women's hats had to be adorned with remarkable panaches." The kind of panache that remains with us today is only metaphorical, "Michael Jordan not only stuffed the basketball through the net, he did it with panache."

Word History: This Good Word is simply the French word for "plume, verve" from Italian pennacchio "plume" or Spanish penacho. These two words are from Late Latin pinnaculum "little feather", the diminutive of pinna or penna "feather, wing". Pinnacle also comes from Latin pinnaculum, whose meaning had changed to "gable, small wing" just before Latin split into French, Italian, Portuguese, and Spanish. The Proto-Indo-European root was *pet- "feather, wing," also at the root of pen, the writing instrument which originally was a feather. Of course, the PIE [p] became [f], and [t] became [th] in English, so the same root, with the suffix -er, turns up in English as feather.

Re: PANACHE

Posted: Mon Jan 14, 2013 12:15 am
by Perry Lassiter
" just before Latin split into French, Italian, Portuguese, and Spanish"
Can you pin that down within a century?

Re: PANACHE

Posted: Mon Jan 14, 2013 8:29 am
by MTC
Befeathered and bedizened ladies at the royal wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton, Duchess of Cambridge, would be quite distressed to learn "(t)he kind of panache that remains with us today is only metaphorical...." Many of the ladies wore "fascinators," haute couture's latest expression of feathered "panache." You might say the ladies were the very pinnacle of fashion.

(http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/fas ... cle634468/)

Re: PANACHE

Posted: Mon Jan 14, 2013 1:33 pm
by LukeJavan8
The hats of the Princesses Eugenia and Beatrice
protesting their mother's slight in the invitations
was certainly panache.

Re: PANACHE

Posted: Mon Jan 14, 2013 4:58 pm
by MTC
panache: verve of the celebrity chef, e.g. Wolfgang Puck

Re: PANACHE

Posted: Mon Jan 14, 2013 5:21 pm
by Philip Hudson
Panache - one of Hudson's ugliest words in the English Language.

Re: PANACHE

Posted: Mon Jan 14, 2013 7:28 pm
by LukeJavan8
Panache - one of Hudson's ugliest words in the English Language.

I'd be interested in seeing your list.

Re: PANACHE

Posted: Mon Jan 14, 2013 9:16 pm
by Philip Hudson
Luke: I don't really have a list, there are just words that sound all wrong to me. Panache is one of them. Not that I have never worn a panache myself. Many people who have been in a marching band have had panaches on their band caps. I thought it was pronounced 'pan-uh-chee. How was i to know?

Re: PANACHE

Posted: Tue Jan 15, 2013 1:32 pm
by LukeJavan8
No biggie, just thought you might.
On these "word" sites people have all sorts of
"faves" and not so favorite.

I thought it was pronounced pan-uh-kee.
Similarly I thought riboflavin
(reading the milk carton at breakfast as a kid)
was rib-oh-flav-in. How was I to know, until one day
I said it aloud :oops:

Re: PANACHE

Posted: Sat Jan 19, 2013 2:15 am
by Philip Hudson
Harry Truman had an enormous vocabulary. Not being able to associate with learned people for much of his early life, he was a master of mispronunciation.

Re: PANACHE

Posted: Sat Jan 19, 2013 12:38 pm
by LukeJavan8
I've heard that as well. If you are not up to looking up
every other word in the dictionary, you try to sound them
out as best you can, and hope you've got it right.

Re: PANACHE

Posted: Sat Jan 19, 2013 12:46 pm
by Perry Lassiter
Taught to read by phonetics, as I was and prefer, they don't provide a place to accent them. I've noticed even doctors don't always agree on where to accent some medicines and medical terms. Is "angina" accented on the first or second syllable? Of course, Britishers and Americans vary widely, especially in the English tendency to emphasize an early syllable so the rest of the word becomes schwa-like. Keep it up, and they'll out-French the French.

Re: PANACHE

Posted: Sat Jan 19, 2013 1:05 pm
by LukeJavan8
My heart skipped a beat on that last thought ! !

Re: PANACHE

Posted: Sat Jan 19, 2013 7:34 pm
by Slava
My heart skipped a beat on that last thought ! !
Was that an up-beat or a down-beat?

Bah-dah-bum!

Re: PANACHE

Posted: Sat Jan 19, 2013 8:56 pm
by LukeJavan8
Sort of like a 'tick-tock' without the 'tock'.