I was intrigued to find this example of the word raque (see photo), a word belonging to the informal, spoken level of Quebec French, but usually spelled rack.
This sign informs us that everything on the rack is on sale for $69. The word raque here refers to the rack that the shirts are hanging on. The use of rack in French (or raque as we see it here) is a borrowing from the English “rack.”
If you watched the Pure laine clip from entry #493, you might have caught another example of rack in use. The young Ming says rack à t-shirts when speaking to the store employee. Similarly, you might also hear rack à velos in the spoken language.
The use of rack in French surely ruffles the feathers of language purists. It’s not the sort of word you’ll find in professionally created advertising.
The fact that this word managed to find its way onto the sign here isn’t what intrigues me, however. This is just a simple sign created by an employee for that single rack of shirts.
What I find interesting about the use of raque in this photo is the French spelling applied to it (raque instead of rack).
Was a French spelling used because the word is simply felt to be French by the person who made the sign?
Or was this maybe the writer’s attempt to render the word more French for the purpose of a sign, unsure if the original English spelling was acceptable?
This puts me in mind of the word Portmanteau, which was adopted in English to mean a clothes rack or a suitcase. But which is now used to refer to a new word/concept which is created by combining existing words or concepts.