Word To Use Today: lagniappe.

 This word has had such a merry journey to get into English that no one's really sure now how to pronounce it. LANyap, lanYAP, or lanny-app. Take your pick!

A lagniappe is a free gift (hey, why are they free gifts? What gifts aren't free?) given by a seller to a buyer. It might be a biscuit over the weight, or an extra nail in the bag, or a few chilli peppers, that kind of thing. The word comes most recently from New Orleans, where buyers will ask for one for lagniappe - and will nearly always be given it.

I came across a lagniappe the other day as I was putting away the Christmas decorations. Long ago in Budapest a man in a gift shop in a cellar gave us a tiny rag doll in a walnut-shell cradle; so the custom of lagniappe isn't limited to New Orleans and other places, such as Trinidad and Tobago, which have a shared history. 

In Ireland a lagniappe might be called a luckpenny.

The word itself, though in English dictionaries, is still redolent of Louisiana Creole or Cajun French. And, of course, of warmth and generosity. It's just what we need here in England, in a foggy and freezing and flooded mid-winter. And throughout the world, too.

Word To Use Today: lagniappe. La means the in French and Spanish. The niappe bit of the word goes back to the Quechua word yapay, which means to increase or add, and the word yapa is still used in Andean markets when asking for a lagniappe. The word came through South American Spanish before it settled into French Creole.