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Show JUST TAKE MY WORD ly Frank Colby Khaki Is a Hindu word meaning "dust colored.'' Uniforms of dust-colored dust-colored drill are said to have been first worn by British and native troops la India in IMS. Today any drab or- gieeu-giay uniform 1 called khakt In America, khaki is no longer associated with color. Among servicemen, khaki refers to ths cotton material for uniforms, uni-forms, whether tan, oliva drab, gray-green, or ths grsy of ths naval uniforms. Khaki Is univer-sally univer-sally pronounced: - KACK-ee, to rhyme with wacky. But our dictionaries dic-tionaries still naively list th word with th British pronunciation: pronuncia-tion: KAH-ki, th "1" short aa In "kit." Lagniapps Is Creole French. It la pronounced: laa-TAP. It la a corruption of th 8panlsh word napa, "something over or extra." Originally, lagniapp was a small gift, such as a piece or two of candy, given by merchants to tha children of customers when th latter bought a bill of goods or settled their accounts. The word now has ths additional extended meaning of "anything given In excess ex-cess of the proper and expected amount" In Baa Antonio, and elsewhere In tha southwest where Mexicans hsvs settled, ths Spanish ' word pikm has about th asms meaning as lagniappe. Literally, it means "sugsr losT'; hence, a piece of candy or some other trifle given as something extra. Pi Ion is accented on the second syllable, which rhymes with bone, tone, thus: pea-LONE. pea-LONE. liaison. Ths French loan-word naisoa earn into nmmlnanna at ... . i . . 9 tha beginning of World War L for it is a word that civilians rarely hear la times of peace. Ths French end ths word with the characteristic character-istic nasal sound: lee-eh-ZAW(N). In American usage th prevail big pronunciation la: LEK-uh-aon; also: LEE-uh-i'n. Soms dictionaries diction-aries show lee-AT-x'n, but It Is seldom heard. Maaseur-Maaseuss. A reader tells ms thst ths proprietor of a place which featuers ' Swedish anaasagea assures her that tha words masseur (masculine) aad sssauss feminine), ara pro nounced "muh-SOC-r" and "muh-8OO "muh-8OO 88." 8h asks for my comment. com-ment. My comment Is that perhaps soma persons do say "muh-SOO-r" and "muh-SO088," but they shouldn't In the American pronunciation pro-nunciation of masseur, th "a" Is flat aa la "mat," and tha second syllable rhymes with her, per, thus: ms-SKR. Ths vowel sound In ths second syllable of masseuse is liks ths "u" of "urn," but with no suggestion sugges-tion of th sound of "r." Say: "ma-SUZ. RsUssed by BU Syndicate, lac. |