Origin of Bespoke

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hello, this is Carolyn Dreyer from San Diego.

Hi, Carolyn. How are you doing?

Hi, Carolyn.

I’m doing well.

What’s going on?

I am a huge fan of words. I’m a huge fan of your program.

I am a former retired copywriter, so words are my life.

Right.

And one word I’ve never understood is why fancy tailored suits, like from Savile Row and so on, are called bespoke.

Do you have clothing like this, Carolyn?

I knew. James Bond does, but I don’t.

So he goes in, James Bond goes into the tailor and gets measured, and they make a suit just for his body, right?

Right.

All the bust and the inseam and the hips and the whole thing, right?

Yeah, this word confused me when I first ran into it in print because I thought bespoke clothing, I was thinking of spoke like the spokes on a bicycle wheel, and I thought maybe they put it on the hanger wrong, you know, it sort of punched out a little bit.

I didn’t understand it either. It took quite a while to get it.

It was because in context, bespoke is often… all I could think was spoken for, you know, like something was spoken for.

Well, Carolyn, you’re pretty much right.

It goes back to an old word, bespeak, the old sense of bespeak, meaning to discuss or decide upon.

Well, there’s a sense to order or even to arrange for something to happen.

Exactly.

It was used early on by tailors and in other professions where you make something to order.

And that’s what it means if something is bespoke.

And usually you hear it about clothing, but you can also hear it about computer software, you know, bespoke software, particularly for your business and your particular business needs.

I’ve even seen bespoke cocktail.

Bespoke cocktail.

Yeah.

What?

I’ll take a dash of each?

Yeah, you know, you go and you get a custom-made drink.

Oh, oh, oh.

But usually you see it in the context of clothing.

So the whole idea of the spoken there is directly related to our, you know, spoken language.

And so to bespeak in this particular sense was to request or order as if you’re ordering a service, ordering a good, right?

Ordering a product, right?

Exactly.

Yeah, the be here has an unusual sense in that it gives sort of a transitive force to the verb speak.

You know, you don’t usually think of speak as a transitive verb, but in the same way that bewail and bemoan and belie have sort of a transitive sense because of that be.

It’s like you bespeak the clothing.

So you bespeak something, right?

Yes.

Okay.

Yes.

Like order clothing.

I’ll have to remember that next time I order a cocktail.

See what happens.

Yeah? What kind of recipe would you use?

I always get recipes of cocktails when I’m in a restaurant and I really like one.

I write down what’s in it, and then I come home and I try to do it myself.

Does it work?

Yes.

Oh, okay.

Yes, it does. Actually, it does.

I have bad luck with that sort of thing. I’m always missing something crucial.

Grenadine? Who’s Grenadine at home?

Jalapenos, what?

They always need strange ingredients, though.

Thank you so much for calling, Carolyn.

Well, thanks, Carolyn.

Take care now.

Thank you.

Bye-bye.

Bye.

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