In The vocabula Review, Richard Lehrer has an article in wich he discusses drugstore drinks"
"In northern New England, they take the term milk shake quite literally. To many residing in that little corner of the country, a milk shake consists of milk mixed with flavored syrup — and nothing more — shaken until foamy. If you live in Rhode Island or in southern Massachusetts and you want ice cream in your milk drink, you ask for a cabinet (named after the square wooden cabinet in which the mixer was encased). If you live farther north, you order a velvet or a frappe (from the French frapper, to ice). "

I have always believed that "frapper" was French meaning to beat. I never had a "frappe" (no accent aigu) that wasn't
beaten, and only ice was icecream.
I am surprised that my dictionary appears to confirm his
description. He also says they are called cabinets in southern New England. I was born about halfway between Boston and Cape Cod, and I never heard of a "cabinet" meaning same as frappe. I wonder why he didn't ;mention "sundae".

frappé
adj.
5Fr, pp. of frapper, to strike6 partly frozen; iced; cooled
n.
1 a dessert made of partly frozen beverages, fruit juices, etc.
2 a drink made of some beverage poured over shaved ice
3 [New England] a milkshake Also, esp. for n. 3, frappe 7frap8

From a site on Internet, by a self-styled food and wine expert:
"Go into Milan, Rome or Florence and millions of Italians will tell you that both the Americans and the French are ignoramuses - that the true frappe is made by whipping or beating fruit-flavored sherbet into an almost liquid state and then drinking it through a straw"

So, I was more cosmopolitan than I realized.

http://www.stratsplace.com/rogov/reflections_frappes.htmlhttp://www.stratsplace.com/rogov/reflections_frappes.html

You wouldn't believe the trouble Yahoo DSL is giving me.
First, using Edit...Copy in one window would not Edit...Paste in the second window.
So I tried Edit...Copy in the same window as this post,
and it still would not Paste. So I tried keyboard command
tsuwm told me about, and I finally got it pasted. I'm so pissed I didn't bother to make it clickable.
I hate Yahoo DSL.

And a "float" was just icecream dropped into carbonated water, but not beaten.(Beating would spoil carbonation.)

Frappé is cold in French because you put coffee and ice in a container, then savagely beat the d... thing until the ice is broken to pieces and cools the drink.
Also frappé, when applied to oneself means astonished (shaken), when applied to somebody else : nut, crazy.

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