Why Would Anyone Use The Term, ‘Bete Noire’ In The 21st Century?

Adebayo Adeniran
3 min readSep 29, 2024

And other antiquated phrases….

Jimmy Chan via Pexels

The English language is littered with expressions (and words)which should never be deployed in 21st century conversation.

No one, in their right minds, would say niggardly when parsimonious or stingy would do.

Hardly would you find anyone using the term ‘consumption’ to describe tuberculosis in the United Kingdom or in the United States of America, in 2024.

But there are still those, among us, who seek to show that they are more sophisticated than everyone else and this select group tend to pepper their conversations with lots of French words.

Terms such as Laissez-Faire, Savoir-Faire, Pour Encourager Les Austres, A Propos, Bon-mots, are usually found in The Times Newspaper— the preferred broadsheet of the upper class Englishman and woman.

And it is also in those exclusive publications that you’re likely to find the term Bete Noire deployed to describe one’s particular dislike of something.

And if you’re wondering, Bete Noire, literally means Black Beast in anglaise.

Would any native speaker of English use that term in English, without being accused of being a racist?

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Adebayo Adeniran

A lifelong bibliophile, who seeks to unleash his energy on as many subjects as possible