Why Did French Courtiers Grow Their Left Little Fingernail Longer? It Was De Rigueur

Finishing up some loose ends, I have one word from last week to cover: polemics. Polemics is described in one dictionary as “the art or practice of disputation or controversy.” To which I respond “huh?”

Polemics is (polemics can be used as a singular or a plural noun) when someone presents a reasoned and contrary view of a belief or a doctrine. It comes from the French word polémique, which also referred to a controversial argument. The French likely got it from the Greek word for relating to war, polemikós. Its use in English can be traced back as far as the 1630s.

While we’re talking about French words that made their way to English, I used the phrase de rigueur in the blog post title on Sept. 1 and never explained it.

De rigueur is one of those phrases that has become so common in English that it is questionable whether it should be italicized or not. (I italicize foreign words – is de rigueur still foreign or not?) The French means literally “of strictness”, and has been used in English since 1849. But its meaning has become strictly required by fashion, usage, or etiquette.

The word rigueur in modern French is the source of our word rigor. The Old French word was spelled rigor, and that is the spelling adopted in the late 14^th century when the English first used the word that now means severity, strictness, or harshness. Its original meaning of hardness is retained in the Latin phrase rigor mortis, the stiffening of the body after death.

The Latin verb for hardness or stiffness is regere, and is the source of rigor. But the adjective is rigidus,  from which English got our word for stiff or hard, rigid, in the 15^th century. Same source word, different form.

A final French word that’s made its way into English is one used in the definition of de rigueur: etiquette. In 1750 the French word etiquette meant “prescribed behavior,” and if you can imagine the French court in the 1750s it’s easy to imagine how prescribed behavior had become. (It is said that King Louis XIV’s etiquette prescribed that anyone wishing to speak with the King could not knock on his door; he had to use the little finger on his left hand and gently scratch on the door. Rumor has it that courtiers grew that fingernail longer than the others.)

The Old French word is estiquette, and means ticket or label. The main sense relates to the behavior instructions written on a soldier’s billet for lodgings. One can easily see how, given the relation between behaving properly and keeping one’s head attached, those who were part of the French Court would have written “cheat sheets” to make sure they remembered how to behave while at court.

And you thought it was all music and dancing.