Stage technology

The sixth entry is élingue de sécurité, and the first noun is an English word wearing a French hat. French took it from the Low Countries, where Middle Dutch slinge was the sling, the strap a stone is whirled in and let fly from; « sling » in English belongs to the same Germanic stock, which is why a rigger in Britain calls this very object a sling. What happened on the way is a rule rather than an accident. Gallo-Romance could not open a word with s followed by another consonant, so it propped the cluster up with a vowel: schola became escole and then école, stella became étoile, spatha became épée, spiritus became esprit. The borrowed slinge went through the same mill, the propped s fell silent and then out of the spelling, and the accent on élingue is the headstone of the letter that left. The family followed the noun: élinguer une charge is to sling a load, and l’élingage is the whole operation. Read the accent as a missing s and the word comes home.