A lagniappe is a little something extra that a merchant might toss in for a customer, like a complimentary ball-point pen. What’s the origin of that word? This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “Lagniappe”
Hi, you have A Way with Words.
Hi, this is Seth, and I’m calling from Arlington, Texas.
Hi, Seth. Welcome to the program.
I had a friend show up at my house the other day. He and a couple of friends were from southern Louisiana, and they dropped a new word on me I’d never heard. They just kept going, acting like it was no big deal, and it was this word, lanyap.
Lanyap. Lanyap. Never heard it before. I had another friend tell me just recently that not only is it a commonly used word there, but apparently there’s a restaurant called Louisiana Lagnap.
-huh.
Yeah, sure, definitely.
-huh.
So did they drop a lagnap on you or just the word? It was something along the lines of, you know, we were talking about this and that, and, you know, lagnap. I’m like, what is that? What’s that word? I don’t understand. What? Did somebody say something extra or do something extra?
Yes. He was reading from a book, and he was reading from a book, and then he went on to kind of explain what the character was doing. And that’s when he said, you know, the character was doing this and, you know, lanyard.
So this, that, and lanyard sort of like and whatnot? Is that the idea? Honestly, it’s the way he explained to me was something about, you know, and the rest of the stuff or, you know, and like that.
Oh, really? And so forth, et cetera, that kind of thing? That kind of thing. Like it’s a, what did he say, a little bit of extra.
Right. Something along those lines. And your friends are from Louisiana.
Yes, southern Louisiana.
Okay. Well, yeah, well, that makes sense. Usually lanyard in that area is some specific object or some little extra thing that somebody gives you. You know, like you go to an open house and the realtor gives you an ugly calendar or a pen with the phone number of the realty office on it or something like that. That’s a lanyard. It’s a little extra gift, and it comes ultimately from Quechua, the language of Peru, and it meant something extra.
And Spaniards picked it up, and then it found its way into Creole French in Louisiana.
Right, and they said something about it being French, and I was like, well, I’ve lived in a French-speaking country, and I’ve never heard that word.
Yeah, the spelling was definitely Frankified, if we can coin a word, and it looks French, and it was adopted into Louisiana French, but it is not French of origin.
Right, so you’ll ordinarily see it L-A-G-N-I-A-P-P-E. But it’s interesting, Seth, I haven’t heard anybody use it in an abstract sense like that. Have you, Grant, to hear somebody say this, that, and lagniappe?
I kind of like it. It’s almost always, in my experience, been a gift, as you say. And I’m looking here, and there’s a famous slang dictionary by these fellows, Leland and Berrer, and they talk about this in the early part of the last century in New Orleans. If somebody bought a bunch of rice, they would be given a little extra spice or candy on the side, and that was the lanyap.
So you might buy a dozen eggs, and they’ll give you apples as well. So, Seth, it sounds like you got a linguistic lanyap out of that conversation.
Actually, I did. Thanks for calling, Seth.
Thank you, guys. Have a great day.
Okay, bye-bye.
Bye-bye.
Well, if your friends have used a word that doesn’t make sense to you, call us 1-877-929-9673 or send us an email. That address is words@waywordradio.org.
