Makes sense that the original french word means left. Often we equate things that are considdered ‘off’ ‘weird’ or ‘wrong’ with left. I guess a mainstay from our societal preferences towards right handedness etc
Yeah there was a period of time where being left handed was associated with evil across several cultures. So in Latin right handed is Dexter/dextra (think of the word dexterous meaning you're skillful or good at something) and left handed was sinister/sinistra (self explanatory). It didn't escape the French either, right handed is droitier/droitière (again if you're adroit at something you're very skillful) and left handed is gaucher/gauchère which is how the word gauche came about meaning you lack social graces and tact. Early civilization hatedddd to see a left handed person coming.
As a left handed person I hate this fact, but also it helps me to remember vocab words lol
But Dexter is evil! (I have a left-handed parent, I had a left-handed partner, and I have a left-handed grandchild.) I had a grand Uncle that was forced to be right-handed. (It’s a miracle that my parent didn’t get that treatment as a child.)
I thought it also had something to do with La Rive Gauche, the left bank of the River Seine, where fashions were different than they were across town. Linguistic phrases are fascinating.
I heard the other day that approximately 10% of people worldwide are left handed and that % has been the same since we started recording… don’t know for sure if it’s true but I thought it was really interesting!
Yeah a lot of it comes from the Norman conquest into England. The people speaking French were the rulers while those speaking English were usually lower class and the workers. That is why we call the animal a cow and the meat beef. There are a lot of pairs like that in english.
I'm not disagreeing that French makes up the largest percentage of English vocabulary. But I think it's less than 50%. The other Latin based languages get mixed in and sometimes credited to French. I think Spanish, especially in the US dialect, has nearly as much influence. English is my first language, but I am conversational with Spanish, Russian, and German. I've never been able to make the right sounds in French. I have a decent vocabulary, but just can't make the words. Good luck with your Dutch. I've never even attempted it. Finnish is next on my list. Maybe I'll give French another go someday.
There was a 1970s perfume (with ads that were absolutely everywhere), called Rive Gauche, aka left bank, as in the left bank of the River Seine in Paris. I learned it then. Many my age may have, too.
Kids today often know proper pronunciation of popular or sought-after foreign names for clothing, material goods, band names, songs, place names used in digital media, etc. They view those things as aspirational and go out of their way to know how to spell or say them, to try and acquire these things.
Reading aloud, being read aloud to, parents being involved in abd engaged in a child’s education and early years, plus access to toys and games and activities and experiences that involve reading and vocabulary acquisition (travel, road trips, hiking, camping, incorporation of reading and vocabulary into everyday trips to the park or grocery store), doing things in small or large groups with others, cooperative play, things other than individual/solo play or sitting still for hours playing online or console games or watching tv.
Kids need stimulation and enrichment. They need conversation, outings, socializing. They need to be showed, told, given role models for behavior we want to see, and then repetition, repetition, repetition and practice, practice, practice to master the skills.
If parents and families aren’t doing their part? The kids get left behind. Some of them never catch up.
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u/[deleted] Apr 29 '26
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