Question: Could you tell me the origins of the word "bistro?"Answer: "Bistro" is defined in Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, Tenth Edition, as "a small or unpretentious restaurant," with the added senses "a small bar or tavern" and "a nightclub." All that can be said with certainty about the origins of the word is that it comes from the French "bistro" (sometimes spelled "bistrot") and appears to have entered our vocabulary not long after World War I drew to a close. There are several theories about the etymology of "bistro," but its ultimate origins remain a mystery, even to the French.
One theory proposes that "bistro" originated in the "argot populaire" (roughly equivalent to slang) of the French and that it was originally used to denote the proprietor of a small cafe rather than the establishment itself.
According to this theory, the term has its roots in western dialect "bistro" meaning "servant boy." The assumption being made here is that the word was borrowed from dialectal speech to refer to a wine seller's servant and then eventually came to mean the seller himself. At any rate, documentary evidence shows that it wasn't really until after 1900 that "bistro" took on its current meaning of "a small restaurant."
Question: Why do we call an uppity person a "snob"?
Answer: In British slang of the late 18th and 19th centuries, a shoemaker was called a "snob," a word whose earlier history we do not know. The use of "snob" for a cobbler still survives in a number of dialects in England, especially in the southern counties, and in the Royal Navy at least into the 1950s. No offense is intended or taken by this use of "snob," but the snob's position in other levels of society has changed a great deal. Perhaps because the shoemaker's trade was considered to be a typical working-class calling, by 1831 the cobbler had given his name to the whole of the lower classes.
In time, "snob" was transformed from a mere designation of membership in the lower classes into a label for a vulgar and tasteless person who tries without success to seem refined. As William Makepeace Thackeray defined the term in his "Book of Snobs" (1848), it meant "he who meanly admires mean things." Thackeray's snob was likely to be a social climber, striving to gain acceptance in a higher level of society by servile imitation of its manners. In our own time, though, the snob has become completely classless. His social standing may be as impeccable as he thinks it is. It is his attitude of superiority rather than his actual rank that defines him.
This column was prepared by the editors of Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, Tenth Edition. Send questions to: Merriam-Webster's Wordwatch, P.O. Box 281, 47 Federal St., Springfield, MA 01102.