Life & Death

Since June 9, 2022, we have been without Frank Arena. He used to say that the mind is a wonderful part of us. It can recall cherished voices, faces, and places. Those memories can be comforting when confronting the harsh reality of loss of our loved ones. Here is a little lagniappe he left us on May 29, 2022.

la·​gniappe | \ ˈlan-ˌyap , lan-ˈyap \ : a small gift given to a customer by a merchant at the time of a purchase broadly : something given or obtained gratuitously or by way of good measure. The waiter added a cup of lobster bisque as a lagniappe to the meal. First known use: 1844. Mark Twain's Thoughts on Lagniappe: "We picked up one excellent word," wrote Mark Twain in Life on the Mississippi (1883), "a word worth traveling to New Orleans to get; a nice limber, expressive, handy word—'lagniappe'.... It is Spanish—so they said." Twain encapsulates the history of lagniappe quite nicely. English speakers learned the word from French-speaking Louisianians, but they in turn had adapted it from the American Spanish word la ñapa. (What Twain didn't know is that the Spanish word is from Quechua, from the word yapa, meaning "something added.") Twain went on to describe how New Orleanians completed shop transactions by saying "Give me something for lagniappe," to which the shopkeeper would respond with "a bit of liquorice-root, … a cheap cigar or a spool of thread." It took a while for lagniappe to catch on throughout the country, but in time, New Yorkers and New Orleanians alike were familiar with this "excellent word."

“Lagniappe.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/lagniappe. Accessed 11 Sep. 2022.