WHAT sort of boeuf?

The present state of the kitchen (with two saucepans fresh from the oven) reminds me of this piece, which I wrote two years ago – almost to the day:

<pre-script> 

On the last Saturday in November (that's  how long I've been worrying at this bit of linguistic gristle) an article in The Times mentioned a reader who had been working away at an anagram for over 3 years. My mail to the Feedback column fell on stony ground, but here it is:

Leigh Carter‘s three-and-a-half year computer-assisted anagram search may have used tools that incorporated the "rule" my French master taught me more than 60 years ago: that cookery words that are based on a name are preceded by an implicit  "à la mode" and are therefore feminine - bourguignonne, mayonnaise... and dauphinoise.

However, I have often reflected, as a student of philology, that rules like this are usually the sign of a linguistic change in progress; I discuss a fascinating case here (about an early Roman Latin master's list of rules proscribing common errors). My most recent dictionary (Concise OED, 2013) lists dauphinois as a headword and relegates dauphinoise to a parenthetical "(also ...)". But Onelook (a web-based finder of dictionary entries) finds only one entry - Oxford's. (In contrast, it finds four - including Oxford's) for dauphinois. 

</pre-script> 

There my main area of concern (linguistic concern, that is  – I wouldn't like anyone to think I  get properly upset about stuff like this; what kind of nutter do you take me for?) was the ending of dauphinois/e. But that old post went on:  

<pre-script> 

[T]his does not apply only to dauphinois, for which Onelook finds only one entry. In the case of bourguignon (which I vainly, and – let's face – it mistakenly) whinged about here:

... (for example bon/bonne, cadet/cadette, Bourgignon/Bourguignonne... 

<mini-rant status="stillborn">
No, I won't but... If people would just pronounce the /n/ when they say Bœuf Bourguignonne.  PLEASE.
</mini-rant> 

... etc.)

The fight in defence of the rectitude of bourguignonne (according to the "B-G rule" [B-G being the French master who taught me it]) ...

<2022-afterthought>
(and rather neatly it repeats the initials not only of M. Baring-Gould but also of the first two syllables of the word in question)
</2022-afterthought>

...has been well and truly lost. Google finds 

About 9,010,000 results for boeuf bourguignon 

but only 

About 311,000 results for boeuf bourguignonne.

And the ...gnon version really has the Good Housekeeping seal of approval. Teachers laying down rules are a sure sign that language is on the move.

</pre-script> 

That last sentence is worth underlining. In  the second paragraph of that unpublished letter, where I refer to a Latin teacher (or tourist guide, or whoever it was that compiled a list of common mistakes and the "correct" version) I touch on one of the main sources of information of use to students of the history of languages: contemporary advice about "correct" ways of talking. In What's BALD about a bat? I discuss the warning not to say CALVA SORICEM but rather VESPERTILIONEM (the source of our pipistrelle...

A pipistrelle bat (far from bald)

...) But the mistake (which seems to be based on a pre-existing underlying local word (the fancy word is "substrate") that meant owl; so that CALVA SORICEM, meaning 'owl-mouse' (making much more sense than 'bald-mouse', which it's manifestly not), is the source of the standard French chauve souris.

That's all for now.

b