What is the English word describing a long thin loaf of French bread, which crust is appetisingly golden and crunchy, and the bread inside is light and fluffy?
asked Apr 20, 2012 at 17:14
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4I've read through some of your questions and answers, and they all are riveted on food. You say you are a foreign cook, which makes it understandable, but I still think that you should refer to the cooking section of StackExchange instead of EL&U– PaolaApr 20, 2012 at 18:21
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@Paola - Why have you used "through" rather than "across"?– Elberich SchneiderApr 20, 2012 at 19:37
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1@ Anglo Saxon. I used "read through" as per its definition of "to read something carefully from beginning to end in order to check details". I'm not aware of any usage of "read across".– PaolaApr 22, 2012 at 22:54
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5 Answers
Frankly I think most Americans call it, "a loaf of French bread" or simply "a French bread".
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3Or baguette, at least in the Northeast US where there are large numbers of francophones.– Kit Z. Fox ♦Apr 20, 2012 at 17:26
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I don't know that I'd go as far as most- certainly many do but baguette is not an uncommon word in America. It is frequently seen on menus along with other loan words like croissant. Like here for example- if surfers can understand it- it can't be too foreign.– JimApr 20, 2012 at 17:28
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I'm not sure how you'd find statistics on this. I expect an ngram search would find many more instances of "loaf" than "baguette", but most of those would be referring to bread in general. I wouldn't be surprised if this is a regionalism, but in New York, Ohio, and Michigan, where I've spent most of my life, I don't recall ever hearing someone use the word "baguette". I've heard it on television, that's about it.– JayApr 23, 2012 at 14:29
It's the same as it is in French: a baguette
In the UK we call it a stick of French bread (baton or baguette are a bit "middle-class")
answered Apr 20, 2012 at 17:23
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@Jez,Mitch: I suspect most Brits wouldn't know the difference between a baguette and a ficelle (which I much prefer). I lived in France for a year, and I've nothing against the people or their language, but I do think it's slightly posh/affected to use their words when we've got perfectly good ones of our own. Though of course that's why we have pork, beef, and mutton - French words for what our Anglo-Saxon ancestors had to rear, slaughter, and cook for their posh Norman overlords! Apr 20, 2012 at 23:22
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@Robusto: Only a bit, but yeah. Around the time "English" really got going (Chaucer...Shakespeare), "courtly" language was French, and "churchly" was Latin. There's still a bit of a tendency to cast Anglo Saxon as the language of the peasantry (I f**king well hope OP reads this and recognises I'm rooting for his monicker as well as our shared tradition! ;) Apr 21, 2012 at 13:35
It could also be ficelle.
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In the U.S., I think both ficelles and baguettes commonly get called baguettes (although you sometimes see ficelles that are called ficelles). Apr 21, 2012 at 0:08
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@PeterShor: There's a bakery a mile from me that sells both. The ficelles are thinner — mostly crust.– RobustoApr 21, 2012 at 1:49
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There's a bakery near where I grew up where you can buy a "grande baguette" (a baguette) or a "baguette" (a ficelle). But at least they get the French gender correct. Apr 21, 2012 at 2:13
It is described in English language dictionaries as a long thin loaf of white bread with French origins. It is usually pronounced as two syllables, with the tonic accent on the last syllable: Bag-ETT. http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/baguette https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/baguette
In France, some people will pronounce it as three syllables: bag-ET-te.
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Hello Samuel. Welcome to English Language and Usage. The word Baguette was already suggested by @Jim above. Please try to read other answers when you post an answer to an old question. Good luck.– user140086Nov 2, 2016 at 14:49