Marmite is named after the picture on its own label. A marmite is a French cooking pot, and the spread was first sold in little earthenware versions of one in 1902. The pot stayed on the jar long after the jar stopped being a pot. And the French word itself has a much stranger past: it once meant a hypocrite.
Marmite Articles
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Marmite is a French word, and the jar used to be a pot
The pronunciation argument has been running for at least a hundred years. "Mar-meet" is the original French, and is, technically, correct. "Mar-might" is the British naturalisation, and is what almost everyone in Britain actually says. Both are now acceptable.
On the origins of the word Marmite
From www.nakedtranslations.com [site appears to be dead] We were looking at the menu of a very nice London restaurant on Saturday when one of my co-lunchers exclaimed: "Monkfish tail "en marmite"??! Whaaaat? Fish in Marmite?" Tut tut. Those Engleesh. I reassured my friend: "Of course not.
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