Found in the NY Times Oscar coverage:
It took quite a while to get to the meatier categories, and Ms. DeGeneres’s aisle routine got a little old. Martin Scorsese received a standing ovation for winning his Oscar, but there were few surprises among the winners. Helen Mirren predictably showed sang-froid; Jennifer Hudson managed to look surprised and tearful, naming her grandmother as her inspiration.
That was a new one on me, so I looked it up:
(sahn-FRWAH, sahn-FWAH) Composure in the face of difficulty or danger: “We would all be dead today if our bus driver hadn’t kept his sangfroid when the bus began to skid on the ice.” From French, meaning “cold blood.”
Wow. Thank goodness for that pronunciation guide. I probably would have pronounced it "sang Freud".
Different sources I found spell it with and without the hyphen, but the NY Times seems to consistently use a hyphen.
Previous Oscar 2007 posts:
- Mark Wahlberg Trivia You Don't Wanna Know
Previous WOTD - Alan Smithee
Posted by lesjones
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