Chocolatier

[Lior]

Can you say "chocolatiere" And if so is the "r" pronounced? I know that chocolatier is"shokolattieh". I seem to recall that there is not a feminine form-perhaps I am wrong!

[Darienne]

Can you say "chocolatiere" And if so is the "r" pronounced? I know that chocolatier is"shokolattieh". I seem to recall that there is not a feminine form-perhaps I am wrong!

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Too funny. I decided to give Google a chance before I replied to you so I typed in 'chocolatier feminine form' and the very first post was yours asking the question. Quick, I would say.

I guess there is no feminine form and it is up to us to fulfill this onerous task! Chocolatierre, chocolatieress, chocolatina, chocolatierella. Aarrgh. Very silly. Obviously neither of us is at a chocolate convention today!!!

[Lior]

[mkayahara]

Yes, my dictionary says that the feminine form is "chocolatière", and you would indeed pronounce the "r".

[John DePaula]

Yes, my dictionary says that the feminine form is "chocolatière", and you would indeed pronounce the "r".

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My dictionary says that this is a 'chocolate pot.' Does your dict. say also that this is a female chocolate maker? I've never heard the word used this way but that doesn't mean anything,,,

Edited April 20, 2009 by John DePaula (log)

[Lior]

How funny! I do not want to call myself a chocolate pot! Anyone French out there?

[KatieLoeb]

For whatever it's worth, I come across this very same issue with Sommelier and Sommeliere all the time. I prefer to refer to myself as the latter, feminine form, because it's all verifiable and true. I am, both by definition and in fact, a female sommelier. Therefore, I presume for anyone that cares, a Sommeliere.

I think it probably only matters if you're writing it out somewhere. Anyone else would (hopefully) understand it in context....

[Abra]

In theory any name of a profession that ends in ier can be feminized by using ière instead, but in the case where the word chocolatière is already used to mean a special pot for hot chocolate, you're bound to engender confusion. Although the French are making progress withthis, there are still a lot of instances where the language insists that the professions be called by a name in the masculine.

Edited April 20, 2009 by Abra (log)

[Lior]

wow! Thank you! Very fascinating! I hope Sommeliere has no other definition!

So if I am asked I will say the masculine form as the pronunciation for feminine is different. It is hard for me to call myself "chocolatier" to begin with!! I always feel like those bigs guys out there would raise their eyebrows in amusement!

"Hi, Pierre (Marcolini) I am a chocolate pot!!

[Serj]

This online French dictionary lists chocolatière as both a female chocolate maker/seller and a hot chocolate preparing/serving container...

http://www.cnrtl.fr/definition/chocolati%C3%A8re

[tomdarch]

I don't actually speak French anything like fluently, so I am way out of my depth making up words in French, but the form "Chocolateuse" came to mind.

Also, at lest in English, quite a few of my female friends who act for a living refer to themselves as an "actor" rather than "actress". I haven't really dug into why they prefer the masculine/neutral form to the exclusively feminine.

[Lior]

I wonder if that is just common talk nowadays?

I wonder whatis commonly used in France? I guess the masc form as was mentioned...

[Abra]

Even if you don't read a lot of French, you can look here and see that this woman is referred by a French TV station to as a pâtissier-chocolatier. That's common usage, as far as I know.

[schneich]

our ex chocolate lab intern opened a shop in muenster and call herself

"chocolatrice" to me its the nicest female form of chocolatier :-)

cheers

[HungryC]

If the French don't feminize the word in their own language, why would you want to do so in English? Contemporary English useage trends away from gender-specificity. Poetess and cateress are dead & gone, and actress is on its way out (at least among professionals). It seems rather affected to me (sorry, don't mean to offend, just being honest as a French speaker).

[Lior]

The point is that I speak Hebrew here and we do have the feminine and masculine and it is not correct to use masc for fem and so forth. So we say, in Hebrew :

"shokolatiyeh" and as a a lady people sometimes add the hebrew feminine (it pronounced "eat) to this and this cannot be added to the ending "yeh" It is not right to say "shokolatiyeh-it"

and so it becomes "shokolatierit: pronouncing the r.

Kind of hard to follow. And besides, someone on my local forum asked and was told that itis chocolatier for men and chocolatiere for women. I thought he may be mistaken and "shokolatierit" sounds odd.

It is not really important but I am curious.

chocolatrice sounds nice!

[Darienne]

I do like chocolatrice. Has a nice ring to it.

Any discussion of words and gender always reminds me of that old story...it actually took place in Toronto many years ago... of how a councilman was suggesting that a lady was being oversensitive and fussy by insisting on being called by a feminine term for councilman when he said that the masculine term was historically valid and after all, it was only a word...

Fine, she said, if it's only a word, then let's call us all councilwomen? (Or something very close to that.)

End of story.

It's only a word when you are on the side with the power. Notice how all the'neutral' words we are now using are basically masculine in origin.

Sorry. I got carried away. However, I think I'll call myself a chocolatrice, the wonderfully original feminine term.

[Abra]

Chocolatrice sounds fine so long as you don't pronounce it chocolate rice, which I imagine many people would. Basically you can use any word you want, but if you want to do as the French do (and I'm not sure why you would) it's chocolatier.

[Darienne]

chocolate rice,

[Lior]

chocolate pot with rice... I guess I will stick with chocolatier as I know people here will pronounce it as chocolatrees! And then we have a tree issue which could be a theobroma one I suppose!

editted to add: I liked your old story- how amusing!

Edited April 22, 2009 by Lior (log)

[A Patric]

I am wondering if we are looking for a solution to a non-existent problem.

What I mean is that if we are talking about English, then the word chocolatier, though it is borrowed from French, has no gender connotations.

I can understand that if you are in a French-speaking country that you may want to push for a feminine form of chocolatier, but I just don't think that 99.9% of English speakers have any idea that chocolatier has any sort of masculine connotation.

Just a thought.

Very best,

Alan

[Darienne]

I am wondering if we are looking for a solution to a non-existent problem.

What I mean is that if we are talking about English, then the word chocolatier, though it is borrowed from French, has no gender connotations. 

I can understand that if you are in a French-speaking country that you may want to push for a feminine form of chocolatier, but I just don't think that 99.9% of English speakers have any idea that chocolatier has any sort of masculine connotation.

Just a thought.

Very best,

Alan

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Aw. We wuz jes' funnin' around...

Edited April 22, 2009 by Darienne (log)

[Lior]

Yes But Again if you look a few posts up .... In Hebrew it is a problem! We have gender in everything! In adjectives and nouns and professions

Edited April 22, 2009 by Lior (log)

[Darienne]

Yes But Again if you look a few posts up .... In Hebrew it is a problem! We have gender in everything! In adjectives and nouns and professions

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All best to you, my friend.

[Lior]

Oh Darienne, you are so nice!

I was just informing Alan (as it has been assumed that it is about english speakers, and there is no gender issues there anyway).

But here it is annoying to be called by the female incorrect use of the word with the feminine hebrew suffix added on to that and some fondeures (in the feminine) (!) here correct everyone by telling them "not chocolatier, not chocolatiere"eet" -nothing but chocolatiere!!!

I simply got curious and had some fun with Darienne at the same time.

What a long thread on a such a topic! Sorry, I guess itis my fault!!!