Dear wwh,

Yes, that's interesting. I had supposed that the end of a thousand years would simply generate a somewhat stronger, but similar, reaction to that induced by the end of a hundred years. But no, you are right, rather than just a milestone passed followed by yet more road it seemed more like a finish followed by a new start and that leaves people a lot of room for speculation and introspection leading to fear of the unknown.

On a more mundane note, I was interested by Wordsmith’s pronunciation of fin-de-siècle, compared with the way in which I was taught and the way I have heard it pronounced by others both in the UK and France.

As we were taught, the first part, fin, was pronounced like “fang” with the ng missing and the last part was pronounced like “sea” followed by “eck” followed by “luh” with the uh half swallowed (the uh in the central “duh” was much stronger). So the expression became fa(ng)-duh-seaeckluh. Wordsmith's guidance seemed to give a slightly different pronunciation and I wonder if that is the way it would be pronounced in American English.

I believe we have previously discussed the inconsistencies in how foreign, and particularly French, words are pronounced in English common usage. Some, like fin-de-siècle, bijoux, boutique, are pronounced in French fashion while others such as cornet and homage have become anglicised. I suppose this may depend on how long the word has been in the English language. Latterly (last hundred years or so) the fashion seems to have been to retain the French pronunciation, perhaps to show how educated we are.

dxb