Re: French gender

From: "Christophe Grandsire"

> En réponse à James <Kvasir_postia@...>:
> > equivalent of the -é ending is of course -ée as in repartée.
> "repartée"? Not a French word that I know. Or do you mean "répartie"?
Do you mean "repartie"?  :)

What I *suspect* happened is that "repartie" got imported into English,
spelled "repartee" to keep the /i/ sound so you didn't get /rEpartaI/. Then
by analogy with words like "fiancee", it came to be pronounced /reparte/
(which sounds *ever* so French to an English ear) and then got back-derived
to "repartée", the accent adding  even more prestige. I must admit, I've
usually heard and used it myself in expressions like, "witty repartée"
(/wIti rEparte/), in the meaning of "witty banter", "lively conversational
sparring", with no knowledge of the real French borrowing. I'd've thought it
was spelled "repartée" til now.

Et maintenant, un moment de honte et de seppuku :)

Kou