April 22, 2020

Case File #020.04.22: PICNIC

Picnic is an Anglicized form of the French piquenique. The French word came into use in the mid-seventeenth century, and while there is no tangible evidence regarding its specific origins, linguists and etymologists have developed a cogent theory: they believe it was formed from a combination of the French verb piquer, which means “to pick,” and the Old French noun nique, which means “a trifling thing.” If this is true, then piquenique literally means “to pick a trifling thing,” and this seems plausible when you consider that the French word and its English spin-off, picnic, were originally used to mean “potluck dinner” and that the dishes at a potluck are usually easy-to-prepare and easy-to-carry trifles from which daring diners are encouraged to pick and choose. It wasn't until the early nineteenth century, however, that the English noun came to mean “a meal eaten outdoors,” and its related verb sense, “to eat a meal in the open air,” was coined soon after, making its debut in 1842 in the opening lines of Tennyson's poem “Audley Court.” But the figurative use of picnic in which it means “easy task” or “pleasant experience”—as in, for example, “Finishing the job before the deadline was no picnic”—came late to the proverbial table, having appeared in the English lexicon no earlier than the first quarter of the twentieth century.

©2020 Michael R. Gates

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