Grammar girl here, this week I have a French theme.

I have a quick and dirty tip for you about whether you should capitalize the word French in French fries.

I have a conversation with our newest podcast host, Cara Rota, of the clever cookster about cooking words that come from French,

and finally I'll have a tidbit about the word guillotine, which comes from a surprising French source.

And now about those French fries.

Although we often capitalize a country or city name when it's part of a food name, that's not always the case,

and it's typically not the case with French fries.

Most sources say to keep it lower case.

The reasoning given by the AP's stab book writers is that French describes the style of cut and doesn't refer directly to the country.

The Chicago manual of style also recommends keeping French lower case because French isn't being used literally to refer to the country.

They give Swiss cheese as another example.

It's lower case because it's not actually made in Switzerland.

It's named after a cheese called emmental, which it resembles, and which is made in Switzerland.

And that's capitalized because the name does relate directly to the emmental region where it originated.

On the other hand, though, four out of five examples of the phrase French fries in the Oxford English Dictionary have the word French capitalized,

and the entry in the Merriam Webster online dictionary has French fry lower case.

But notes that French is often capitalized.

Ultimately, it's a style choice, but I recommend keeping the French lower case in French fry.

And that was your quick and dirty tip.

Next, my guest, Cara Rota, from the Clever Cookster is going to tell us about some interesting cooking words that came from French.

If you listened to the show last week, you'll remember that I talked about William the Conqueror and the Norman Invasion,

that in 1066 William, who spoke a version of French, conquered the English army,

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