English or French

[Richard Togher]

I recently heard a critic use what sounded like a French version of the word ACTUALITY - instead of ending in Y the word seemed to end with an E with an actute accent, rather like the word ATTACHE or FIANCEE.

Is this actually used in english, and if so, how does the meaning differ from the usual englsh word ACTUALITY

Many thanks!

[Pete]

I recently heard a critic use what sounded like a French version of the word ACTUALITY - instead of ending in Y the word seemed to end with an E with an actute accent, rather like the word ATTACHE or FIANCEE.

Is this actually used in english, and if so, how does the meaning differ from the usual englsh word ACTUALITY

Many thanks!I haven't heard of the use of actualite or actualité in English. Of course, in certain contexts, the writer of something like a review might toss in a French word, especially if there was reason to believe that most of the audience would be familiar with French. Such use isn't common.

According to on-line dictionaries, the French word actualité traditionally means "the subject being discussed", and more recently has been used to mean a "topic of particular current interest". If the word you heard might have had one of those meanings, the author was using a French word to convey a meaning that a single English word could not. Such usage would be rare and recommended only in very special circumstances, since most people would not understand what was intended.