Why the French have fallen out of cœur with core

The Guardian

27-02-2025

They think it's bizarre not to take a two-hour lunch break, and consider the show Emily in Paris 'worse than cliche'. Next on the list of things that irk the French? The suffix: 'core'.
Earlier this week, the Commission for the Enrichment of the French Language (CELF) called on French speakers to stop using it. Writing in the Journal Officiel, a site that publishes the legislative and regulatory texts of France, it said that, while 'terms formed with the English ending core, such as cottagecore, royalcore, Barbiecore, or gorpcore, are widely used to describe a clothing style and, by extension, a lifestyle inspired by idealised vision of a particular universe', it is preferable to use the word 'style'. Instead of Barbiecore, it suggests Barbie style. In place of gorpcore? Hiker style.
This isn't the first time that the infiltration of an English word or phrase into the French language has caused outrage. In 2018 CELF asked French speakers to replace 'fake news' with 'information fallacieuse'. Two years later, the words clickbait and podcast came under scrutiny.
Olivia Walsh, an associate professor of French and Francophone studies at the University of Nottingham, says she is not surprised core has now been targeted – but describes concerns about anglicism use as 'generally overblown'.
'Those who oppose anglicisms often do not demonstrate awareness of the etymological history of terms,' Walsh says. 'There are many borrowings which are termed aller-retours because they were originally borrowed into English from French and then back again into French, sometimes centuries later.'
How did a word that stems from the French language (it is derived from the word cœur, meaning heart) come to be so prolific in fashion?
In fashion terms, a core is a trend. But it also goes beyond the clothes, describing an aesthetic, encompassing everything from music to moods. The beloved gen Z Aesthetics Wiki page currently features 149 cores, from blokecore (think British football culture and 1980s jerseys) to witchcore, where tarot, crystals and vintage wedding dresses are key.
The first use of the word core can be traced to the early 20th century. In the 1920s, 'hard core' was used to describe people committed to a political party or political cause. Lynne Murphy, professor of linguistics at the University of Sussex, says during the 70s it was treated as 'a bit suffixy', with the use of the word softcore in relation to pornography. Fast forward to 2003 and the Oxford English Dictionary added it as a suffix. But things really took off in 2013 with the emergence of normcore, a catchall term for describing someone who wears 'normal' clothes such as a fleece, dad jeans and New Balance trainers.
2020 was dominated by cottagecore (baking, crochet) following the pandemic lockdown. Greta Gerwig was to blame for Barbiecore, in 2023, while Zendaya in the 2024 film Challengers saw the emergence of tenniscore. There has also been goblincore (think mushroom motifs and mossy greens) corpcore (basically workwear), balletcore (ballet flats and wrap cardigans) and mermaidcore (long wavy hair and seaweed greens) For 2025, fishermancore (cable knit jumpers and lobster platters) is being championed.
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Murphy says the speed of the internet has encouraged the use of labels that set subcultures apart. 'Portmanteau words and these kinds of nouveau suffixes – or combining forms, as they are often called in dictionary-speak - are a way to give things clever, descriptive new names that can be easily understood,' she says.
It's been five years since the word podcast was replaced with 'audio à la demande', but many French speakers still pepper the original anglicism into speech. Murphy credits the importance of the fashion industry to France for turning the focus to the word core but thinks the latest advice is unlikely to be followed. 'If they use imported words, it could look like the French are following Anglo-American trends rather than making their own,' she says. 'But, of course, we also know that such decrees about language are often ineffective.'
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