Christmas ‘Fayre’

[GETTINGLIKEMYMOTHER]

Whether they mean fare or fair, equally cringe-making!

BTW ‘fayre’ is listed in my big fat dictionary as a ‘pseudo-archaic spelling of ‘fair’ (or, presumably, fare.)

But fair and fare mean different things?

if I saw Christmas Fair I would expect rides, if it’s a Fayre it’s stalls selling Christmas bits.

Perhaps a better definition would have been “whimsical misspelling “ as I’ve only seen it used at Christmas and ye olde events

Yes. In my childhood the ones with stalls selling cards & candles were always the Christmas Fair. Now it's Fayre.

DH's French-Canadian cousin was very bemused in the summer when I told him I was going to the school fete. I could see him thinking "fate"?

I saw someone describing a Christmas ‘fayte’ the other day. I could see how they’d got there

At the age of 8 we spent a lesson designing posters for the school Summer Fayre (sic). I spent it Fair and when my teacher queried why I'd spelt it incorrectly I told her it wasn't a genuine older spelling and quoted the Victoria Wood sketch that addresses it. She just sighed and moved on.

I get really irked by it too. Fair all the way.

Several Premier Inns I’ve seen have an attached restaurant called ‘Brewers’ Fayre’!

@AgentPidge , they probably say fête as fett not fate.

I totally agree, Fair to me is Fairground, Full of Rides and Fayre is a place with Stalls selling cakes, gifts, wares, raffles, Tombolas and so on.

That is still a ‘fair’. ‘Fayre’ is a made-up word that’s trying to sound like Olde English.

Fairs were originally for selling things. The entertainments were added on, then remained when the original purpose was lost.

Trade fairs are a continuation of the original type of fair.

Stalls selling cakes, gifts, wares, raffles, Tombolas and so on.

When I was growing up, that would have been a fête or a bazaar, depending on the season. (Not a linguist, but I assume fête comes from the same Latin root as feast or festival.)

There's a Giles cartoon from probably the 1950s. There's a fete/fair/fayre going on and Grandma Giles and Auntie Vera are serving on the bric-a-brac stall. The sign says 'Lovely Rubbish'. As they say nowadays, "Cracks me up whenever I think of it."
I would put an accent on fete but I don't know how to with this keyboard. I think my little mobile phone can do accents but not this machine on my lap.

I can't do accents on my keyboard, but the one over the e is a circumflex and I seem to recall from my schooldays that it indicates a missing 's' in the word, so yes the French word fête does have the same root as the English feast/festival

ETA, as if by magic, my keyboard has reproduced the accent

I would put an accent on fete but I don't know how to with this keyboard.

I copied and pasted the word with the accent from another website (since this is Pedants' corner. I might not have bothered on any other thread.)

I can do accents from within my word processing programme, but don't know how to do them when posting online.

ê e with circumflex Alt + 0234

On a phone, hold down the letter and it should show the different accented e you can select.

Aren’t all words made up?

I think that there was a need for a word that conveyed the specific set up of a Christmas Fayre as opposed to a Fair or fête. Not sure when Fayre was invented but it was definitely in use in the 70s when I was a child.

Some are. Others come into the English language from other languages.

Those words were also made up.

"Fayre" does come from 'olden times'. And can be used instead of either fair or fare.

Thank you for saying what I was about to post- of course imported words were also made up!

According to my big fat Oxford dictionary, ‘Fayre’ does not come from olden times - it’s a pseudo-archaic version of ‘fair’ - but I’ve also seen it used to mean ‘fare’, as in food. E.g a ‘Brewers’ Fayre’ eatery next to a Premier Inn.

I'd pronounce fête as fett, as would everybody I know. Is it meant to sound like fate?

@RaraRachael , yes, feɪt.

Would you accept ye olde inn or would you write it þe olde inn? I can see why people would use pseudo-archaic spelling for branding so I wouldn't see an error to be corrected in fayre.

In my part of Yorkshire there are village feasts that are definitely fetes rather than big meals where we all sit round and eat a lot.

When I was a child our Church had what they called the “Christmas Bazaar” - just thought I’d throw the cat amongst the pigeons with that one 😂

What's wrong with a 'Christmas Bazaar'? Jesus was from the Middle East.