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bobsmith76
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This is from Proust:

Odette fit à Swann « son » thé, lui demanda : « Citron ou crème ? »

Odette peppers her French with English and I'm guessing that here 'son thé' is an anglicism but I want to be sure. I looked up the following:

faire thé

And it seems that correct French would be:

Odette fit à Swann un thé

######## UPDATE

I forgot about n-gram viewer. It appears that in 1880 which is when the narrative takes place although the book was published in 1913, the expression 'his tea' appeared in English 3 times more often than in French though in both languages the expressions were 10 times less frequent than they are now. See here Still, for me those stats are not convincing enough evidence that 'son thé' was an anglicism in French in 1880.

This is from Proust:

Odette fit à Swann « son » thé, lui demanda : « Citron ou crème ? »

Odette peppers her French with English and I'm guessing that here 'son thé' is an anglicism but I want to be sure. I looked up the following:

faire thé

And it seems that correct French would be:

Odette fit à Swann un thé

This is from Proust:

Odette fit à Swann « son » thé, lui demanda : « Citron ou crème ? »

Odette peppers her French with English and I'm guessing that here 'son thé' is an anglicism but I want to be sure. I looked up the following:

faire thé

And it seems that correct French would be:

Odette fit à Swann un thé

######## UPDATE

I forgot about n-gram viewer. It appears that in 1880 which is when the narrative takes place although the book was published in 1913, the expression 'his tea' appeared in English 3 times more often than in French though in both languages the expressions were 10 times less frequent than they are now. See here Still, for me those stats are not convincing enough evidence that 'son thé' was an anglicism in French in 1880.

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bobsmith76
  • 1.4k
  • 6
  • 10

Why is 'son' in "fit à Swann 'son' thé" in scare quotes?

This is from Proust:

Odette fit à Swann « son » thé, lui demanda : « Citron ou crème ? »

Odette peppers her French with English and I'm guessing that here 'son thé' is an anglicism but I want to be sure. I looked up the following:

faire thé

And it seems that correct French would be:

Odette fit à Swann un thé