{"id":7201,"date":"2025-12-07T18:25:23","date_gmt":"2025-12-07T18:25:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/?p=7201"},"modified":"2025-12-07T18:27:54","modified_gmt":"2025-12-07T18:27:54","slug":"word-of-the-day-lagniappe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/2025\/12\/07\/word-of-the-day-lagniappe\/","title":{"rendered":"Word of the Day: Lagniappe"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Today\u2019s word of the day, thanks to the Words Coach (https:\/\/www.wordscoach.com\/dictionary<\/a>), is lagniappe<\/em>. Pronounced \/ l\u00e6n\u02c8y\u00e6p \/ or \/ \u02c8l\u00e6n y\u00e6p \/ (the difference is the stress), it means \u201ca small gift given with a purchase to a customer, by way of compliment or for good measure,\u201d \u201ca gratuity or tip,\u201d or \u201can unexpected or indirect benefit\u201d (https:\/\/www.dictionary.com\/browse\/lagniappe<\/a>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It entered the language around the year \u201c1849, from New Orleans creole, of unknown origin though much speculated upon. Originally a bit of something given by New Orleans shopkeepers to customers. Said to be from American Spanish la \u00f1apa<\/em> \u2018the gift.\u2019 Klein says this is in turn from Quechua yapa<\/em> \u2018something added, gift\u2019\u201d (https:\/\/www.etymonline.com\/search?q=lagniappe<\/a>). The etymonline website then provides a quote from Mark Twain, which is also quoted and to some extent explained by Merriam-Webster.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201c\u2019We picked up one excellent word,\u2019 wrote Mark Twain in Life on the Mississippi<\/em> (1883), \u2018a word worth traveling to New Orleans to get; a nice limber, expressive, handy word\u2014”lagniappe\u201d…. It is Spanish\u2014so they said.\u2019 Twain encapsulates the history of lagniappe<\/em> quite nicely. English speakers learned the word from French-speaking Louisianians, but they in turn had adapted it from the American Spanish word la \u00f1apa<\/em>. (What Twain didn’t know is that the Spanish word is from Quechua<\/a>, from the word yapa<\/em>, meaning \u2018something added.\u2019) Twain went on to describe how New Orleanians completed shop transactions by saying \u2018Give me something for lagniappe,\u2019 to which the shopkeeper would respond with \u2018a bit of liquorice-root, \u2026 a cheap cigar or a spool of thread.\u2019 It took a while for lagniappe<\/em> to catch on throughout the country, but in time, New Yorkers and New Orleanians alike were familiar with this \u2018excellent word\u2019\u201d (https:\/\/www.merriam-webster.com\/dictionary\/lagniappe<\/a>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On this date in 1941, \u201cThe Imperial Japanese Navy, with 353 planes, attacks the US fleet at Pearl Harbor Naval Base, Hawaii, killing 2,403 people\u201d (https:\/\/www.onthisday.com\/events\/december\/7<\/a>). In addition, \u201cImperial Japanese Navy attacks US Naval Air Station Kaneohe Bay, Hawaii; 18 sailors killed, 33 of 36 patrol planes destroyed or damaged, 1st Japanese aircraft shot down in action\u201d and \u201cJapanese Emperor Hirohito<\/a> signs a declaration of war on the United States and the British Empire\u201d (ibid.).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When I was in school, I learned that FDR wanted to stay out of another international war (the Great War had ended just two decades earlier, which is like a major international war having happened in the late 2000s) despite what was going on in Europe, and then, all of a sudden, out of the blue, for no apparent reason, Japan bombed our fleet at Pearl Harbor, forcing us to join the war. That\u2019s not quite what happened.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to Sarah Pruitt, writing on the History.com website, \u201cDuring the Great Depression of the 1930s, Japan sought to solve its economic and demographic woes by forcing its way into China, starting in 1931 with an invasion of Manchuria. When a commission appointed by the League of Nations condemned the invasion, Japan withdrew from the international organization; it would occupy Manchuria until 1945\u201d (https:\/\/www.history.com\/articles\/why-did-japan-attack-pearl-harbor<\/a>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After Japan renewed the Sino-Japanese conflict and conquered the city of Nanking, leading to mass war crimes, \u201cthe United States began passing economic sanctions against Japan, including trade embargoes on aircraft exports, oil and scrap metal, among other key goods, and gave economic support to Guomindang forces. In September 1940, Japan signed the Tripartite Pact with Germany and Italy, the two fascist regimes then at war with the Allies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cTokyo and Washington negotiated for months leading up to the Pearl Harbor attack, without success. While the United States hoped embargoes on oil and other key goods would lead Japan to halt its expansionism, the sanctions and other penalties actually convinced Japan to stand its ground, and stirred up the anger of its people against continued Western interference in Asian affairs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cTo Japan, war with the United States had become to seem inevitable, in order to defend its status as a major world power. Because the odds were stacked against them, their only chance was the element of surprise\u201d (ibid.).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Japanese thought that they would be able to destroy not only the USA\u2019s ability to effectively wage war against Japan in the Pacific by knocking out much of the Pacific fleet but also the willingness of the American people to fight another war. But the attack was not as successful as the Japanese had hoped it would be. One might even say that it accomplished the exact opposite of what they wanted because it awoke a sleeping giant. The USA not only joined battle with the Japanese in the Pacific but also declared war on Deutschland and Italy, joining with its European allies to eventually defeat the Axis powers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In fact, one might even say that the attack on Pearl Harbor came with a lagniappe (unexpected benefit) for the rest of the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Today\u2019s image is of \u201cA U.S. battleship sinking during the Pearl Harbor attack\u201d (https:\/\/www.britannica.com\/event\/Pearl-Harbor-attack<\/a>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Today\u2019s word of the day, thanks to the Words Coach (https:\/\/www.wordscoach.com\/dictionary), is lagniappe. Pronounced \/ l\u00e6n\u02c8y\u00e6p \/ or \/ \u02c8l\u00e6n y\u00e6p \/ (the difference is the stress), it means \u201ca […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":7202,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[52],"tags":[238,395,913,284,914],"class_list":["post-7201","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-word-of-the-day","tag-dictionary","tag-etymology","tag-lagniappe","tag-linguistics","tag-pearl-harbor","clearfix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7201","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7201"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7201\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7203,"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7201\/revisions\/7203"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7202"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7201"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7201"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7201"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}