O.k., so who is the marketing genius that came up with the idea that diluted perfume should be called ‘eau de toilette’ (toilet water)?
I’m sure it started as a joke in France because it was probably considered something only the lower classes did to stretch their perfume dollar…but why does this name persist today?
But even now, most perfumes are available as a ‘toilet water’ version. Excuse me, but if I’m paying $100+ for a friggin’ bottle of diluted perfume (and usually a very nice looking bottle at that), I’d think the mamufacturer would want to convey the message I was buying something truly special rather then some scented water that turds had been floating in.
The word “toilette” used to refer to grooming. Such as “The lady got dressed and finished her toilette,” meaning that she washed her face, or whatever and did her hair, etc. In the days when bathing frequently was somewhat frowned upon, dashing cologne or “toilette water” on one’s stinky person was a standard part of your morning’s grooming for those who could afford it.
If I recall enough of my high school French classes, the term “eau de toilette” is French in origin, roughly translating not to “toilet” (as in the bathroom fixture) but ‘twa-lette’ roughly translating to ‘grooming water’ or a version of cologne.
I was in Cologne last weekend. ( I thought you’d all like to know that…) One of the guys I was with came up with a great money making scheme… we could bottle the water coming from the taps… oops, faucets, and sell it for vast amounts of money… Eau de Cologne!!!
Anybody know why its a French name for a very German town? And why give it a Fench name? Is it because Eau de Cologne sounds more elegant than ‘Wasser Von Koln?’ (Sorry, my German is very limited!!)
melchizedek, it might interest you to know that the French ARE Germans, though I doubt very much you’d ever get one to admit it after three straight wars with Germany.
France is the land of the Franks, a Germannic tribe that migrated from just east of the Rhine river into modern Belgium during the 3rd Century A.D. They gradually expanded into modern northeast France during the next century; you can read about it in an encyclopedia, so I won’t bore you with details.
The Franks established the first post-Roman ‘empire’ in Europe, under Charles the Great, known to most of us as Charlemagne. The extent of the Carolingian Empire included modern France and most of modern Germany. From that day on, there was a constant battle between the kingdom of France and the various political units that thought of themselves as ‘German’ to control areas to the west of the Rhine river, including that area which includes the city of ‘Cologne/Köln’.
For another area that suffers from a surfeit of names, look at any city in western Poland; almost all of them have both Polish and German names, including Gdansk/Danzig, Szczecin/Stettin and Posnan/Posen.
This site will tell you that there’s a region of northeastern France which has been contested for many years. The French region, known as Alsace-Lorraine,
I believe Cologne is in this region; if not, it’s certainly close enough to A-L and to (the partially-French speaking) Belgium that it doesn’t seem a stretch.
If I remember my Michener correctly (I read Poland over the summer), Gdansk and a slew* of other place names were changed when approximately one-third of Poland became German. (The other two-thirds going to Russia and Austria…)
Cologne isn’t in Alsace-Lorraine. It’s in Westphalia. It’s reasonably close to Belgium.
After the French Revolution, the French sent armies towards the east to combat a threat from Austria. That’s when the French occupied Cologne. The French eventually got as far as Russia, but that’s another story.
The French name Cologne and the German name Köln both derive from the Latin Colonia, ‘colony’. It was once the northernmost outpost of the Roman Empire in that area.
When I read about the famous “4711” my jaw dropped open. That is one of the major 47 discoveries in my lifetime! Do you realize that 11 is the sum of 4 and 7, and that the number 4711 has been in my mind for many years???
Although the Franks did indeed lend their name to modern France and probably added some vocabulary words to the language, they were always vastly outnumbered by the native population of latinized Gauls. Even the largest of the Germanic tribes of that period probably didn’t exceed populations of 100,000. Within a relatively short period of time these tribes, cut off from reinforcements, were ‘swamped’ out and absorbed by the Latin majority. Which is why languages such as Spanish and French are classified as Romance ( Latin-based ) and not Germanic. An exception to the above was England which received continuous waves of reinforcing Germanic peoples over a period of centuries ( especially from Saxony ). The Franks are actually are partial exception as well, because of reinforcements from Franconia. This may account for the ultimate dominance and success of at least the Merovingians and maybe the Carolingians as well ( building on the Merovingian coattails ). But they still never established German as a majority language anywhere in France
I believe that by at least the time of Charlemagne’s successors, Frankish German had pretty much died out in the Western ( France ) part of the Carolingian Empire. For that matter the Franks proper never really settled Southern France at all ( though the Visigoths did a bit and the Burgundians were of course in what is today Burgundy ), they just took it away from the Visigoths ( who were centered primarily in Spain ).
It is probably fair to say the French have some German antecedents - But likely the single largest source of ancient genetic material comes from latinized Celts .
As a starving exchange student on winter break, I got tripped up by the confusing mishmash of multilingual names where Germany, Luxembourg and France all come together.
I’m fluent in German but only have about a year of college French. So one time I was in Luxembourg city, trying to buy a ticket for Trier, in Germany, and I asked for it in French. Trouble was, I didn’t know that Francophones call Trier “Treves”, and that there is another city
nearby called “Altrier”!
Just send my a cheque for $20 and you can have your very own bottle of eau de toilette de Cologne… I have plenty going, get it for the ideal Christmas prezzy… your loved ones will love you for it… I have some various scents… mmmmmm you’ll love em!!!
