haute couture

IPA: /ʔot.'ku.tyʁ/

Fr., from feminine of haut (high) + couture (nf.), "sowing, dressmaking", from Vulgar Latin consutura, formed from the supine consutum from Latin consuere, from suere, "to sew", from PIE root *siw-. *sju-, "to sew". English cognate "sew" descends from this PIE root, via Proto-Germanic siwjanan into Old English siwian. Latin -ere verb ending alerts one to the fact that descendant verbs of this PIE root are ablaut verbs, hence, sewn. Sewing may have been an important part of PIE culture, given a direct verb is present (in contrast, PIE had no direct verbs for writing).

Frequently (ab)used as a false cognate of "high culture". Dude, it only means "high dressmaking", but people - I've observed this of Singaporeans especially - mistakenly transfer the association of elitism in the industry to that of society in general. An observed comment on a Singapore blog: "Paris is all about haute couture, the language of love, the monuments...." Paris is all about dressmaking? Really?

"High culture" would be plain haute culture in French. Coincidentally, "culture" is a feminine noun, but that's where the similarities end.

Culture (nf.) [IPA: /'kʌl.tʃɚ/ (Eng.), /kyl.'tyʁ/ (Fr.)] from Latin cultura, "tilling of land". The semantic drift in English is from "maintainence of arable land" (1440) to "personal cultivation and sophistication" (1510) to "lifestyles and customs of civilisations cultivated carefully" (1867). From past participle stem of "colere", "to cultivate, inhabit, guard, grow, practice", which led to senses of "worship, respect" -- compare colonus (colony) and cultus (cult). Colere is from PIE root *qwel-, "to turn around", with descendant words like Latin cyclus (cycle), Sanskrit cakram (cf. Indonesian-Malay cakra, "discus") and Old English hweol, which became modern English wheel. Indeed, cultivation (agriculturally at least) can be thought of as a cycle.

As you can see, culture and couture have very different roots. I can see plausible associations, because culturing something -- be it your crops, your personal character or a society -- is comparable to the fine work of sewing a dress; that of creation, of tending and whatnot. But no, they are not actually connected etymologically or semantically.

I suspect that people choose this phrase because rendering it in French, even though one might not actually know the language, sounds more posh or something, while ironically ignoring the direct French cognate la culture. I have a slight trouble with such folks.

Lately I have been reading arguments that attack Singlish because of the very fact that it's not posh or "high culture". They consist of fallacious accusations that generally argue several of these things: Singlish is broken English (despite it being a creole with its own grammar). It is a "problem". It is a "sub-standard" language. It is a "crutch" in some way. It needs to be discouraged from use, suppressed, wiped out.

It is of a basilectal and informal register, I will grant that. Singlish is an intimate language and can be overly familiar at times: it is just like the French would tutoyer their friends and other intimate contacts but vouvoyer strangers and superiors. It does not mean the language used while tutoying is any more inferior -- in fact it can be the other way round due to the intimacy and familiarity.

People who make the accusation that Singlish is inferior have neither real knowledge of linguistics nor the true meaning of culture, especially when they are as bigoted to imply that speaking dialects is "as bad" as speaking Singlish. (Ng Ya Ken, are you telling me the Chinese dialects are "broken Chinese" too? Dude, I hope you know that Cantonese is centuries older than Mandarin itself.) Singaporeans are a resilient lot, and Singlish is so pervasive in the national culture that is unlikely to go soon. The elitist upper class Putains Au Pouvoir ("bitches in power", or PAP) hate this fact. But they will use whatever campaign necessary to try to have Singlish eliminated in twenty, thirty or fifty years time.

As this elitist and superficial "high culture" mentality occurs at the expense of what should be otherwise thriving legitimate national culture, I bear a strong antipathy to such attitudes.