- By Jim Evans
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Smart TalkSMART TALK by Dr. Verbos Metikulos
RESTAURANTEUR: Here at the Institute for the Linguistically Impaired, we have one or two extreme linguistic liberals on staff who tolerate this spelling. However, being strong supporters of EFL (English as a First Language), they never advocate it.
Restaurateur may someday be replaced by restauranteur, but only when nuclear is replaced by nucular. Both usages betray a lack of observation, hearing, thinking skill, class, or all of the above.
Yes, we say "restaurant," but restaurateur, a French word, is easier to remember when you look it up and learn that a restaurant is a place of restoration. That's the idea the word came from. The operator of such an establishment was called a restaurateur, or restorator. Why not simply "restorer?" Well, not only do the French like to fluff up their words with extra letters, but they also like extra syllables. We Greeks would never be so wasteful.
So the word for restorer was restaurateur, and so it remains.
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