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Are the French words related to perfume actually used in speech by English native-speakers?

English Language & Usage Asked on July 27, 2020

I’ve been shopping to buy perfume and I noticed that there are quite a few French words on the packaging of perfumes. Indeed, the English word "perfume" was not written on any of them, French equivalent "perfume" was everywhere, along with other words.

  • esprit de parfum (ESdP)
  • eau de parfum (EdP)
  • eau de toilette (EdT)
  • eau de Cologne (EdC)
  • eau fraiche

I was wondering whether they are actually used (with the English or French pronunciation) by non-French speakers when they talk about perfumes? I’m personally not even sure how to pronounce them.

(I know for some of them there are English equivalents.)

One Answer

British personal experience, with literary references to support currency and some dictionary references to support English pronunciation.

Parfum

Never ever heard anyone in Britain say this. Google books ngram shows written usage only in the last few years.

Perfume is the most used word for the stuff, as judged by comparison with ‘scent’ and ‘fragrance’ (shudder) — using the qualifier ”bottle of” on the ngram. ‘Scent’ was equally common back in my youth, but is definitely out of fashion now.

Eau de Cologne

The only perfume on the list I have ever heard spoken in Britain is “Eau de Cologne”, and @EdwinAshworth 's ngram bears this out. The others don’t even appear in print until the 1990s. In my youth it was the only perfume working class women (like my mother) ever used. (And men certainly didn’t use that sort of thing.)

Even though I speak French tolerably well, the only pronunciation I would ever use in Britain is that which she used, something like:

Oh dee Ku-loan

i.e. “Eau” pronounced the French way, “de” pronounced to rhyme with “me”, and “Cologne” in the standard English way (/kəˈloʊn/). I have never heard it spoken in France, but the Collins dictionary rhymes it with Bologne (as in Bois de). The “Eau” and “de” are spoken as one word like the first two syllables of Odeon.

Eau de toilette

Toilet water was always toilet water. No normal person would talk about “Eau de toilette”. The Google books ngram shows hardly any printed usage before 1980, with ‘toilet water’ still flushing the opposition. Formidable!

Answered by David on July 27, 2020

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