Spot the Frippet: omelette.

You can't make an omelette without breaking eggs, or so they say (though actually you can, because these vegans get everywhere with their chick peas and their tofu, don't they).

I have to agree that omelettes are seldom spotted coming along the road, but if you don't happen to come across an omelette as you go about your business then it's easy enough to make one. (I've always found that the very best ones have mushrooms in them.)

Actually, though, the real reason for this post is the particularly peculiar history of the word.

Spot the Frippet: omelette. This word came into the English language in the 1600s from France. Before it was called an omelette the French called the thing an allumette, which means sword blade - which is, obviously, nothing like an omelette:

*can you spot the difference?*

 - but this is because the French had split up the words la lemelle wrongly by mistake and somehow ended up with allumette. (We've done quite a lot of that sort of thing in English, too: for example the thing you wear to make an omelette used to be called a napron.) Lemelle comes from the Latin lamella, from lāmina, a thin plate.