How do French words like “cul-de-sac” and “hors d’oeuvres“ end up part of the English language without being translated to English words?
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In the encounters between languages, let’s say French and English (an encounter that has been going on some thousand years), when a word exists for a concept in one language but not the other, borrowings are likely to occur. So for example, with “hors d’oeuvres”, this word existed in French but not in English, and it was easier for English to just adopt the term rather than make their own name for it. This happened with a good many culinary and gastronomic terms, because at the time when these concepts were being developed in English, French was a cultural powerhouse in the domain of gastronomy and so English ended up borrowing things like sauté, soufflé, meringue, etc. This was also the case in the domain of the military, which is why we have so many French words in our English military lexicon (same can be said for fashion). The reverse is true in terms of technological developments, which is why French has borrowed so many tech terms from English.
Borrowing doesn’t have to happen…the uninitiated language COULD reject the other language’s term and make up their own. It doesn’t always “take” though. For example, English had this handy term “brainstorming” , which began to seep into French, as they had no such term. The Académie françaiss tried to come up with a French version, “remue-méninges”…but typically, you still just hear French speakers say “le brainstorming”.
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