DIR Return Create A Forum - Home
---------------------------------------------------------
Hax Community
HTML https://haxnuts.createaforum.com
---------------------------------------------------------
*****************************************************
DIR Return to: Interesting stuff
*****************************************************
#Post#: 393796--------------------------------------------------
Why is it a "French horn"?
DIR By: LesserGoddess
Date: June 6, 2026, 4:52 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
from a mastodon post
HTML https://mstdn.social/@davep@infosec.exchange/116702752736930328
John Finnemore on the French horn/cor anglais:
"I was idly wondering why the cor anglais has a French name
meaning ‘English horn’, and the French horn has an English name
meaning… well, ‘French horn’. I looked it up, even though I knew
there would just be some reasonable but rather dull explanation.
"There isn’t. There is a completely bonkers explanation, in both
cases. Here’s the first.
"So. The cor anglais isn’t English, or French. But that’s
nothing, because another thing it isn’t is… a horn. It’s
basically an overgrown oboe, and it’s from Silesia. But being
thin with a bulb on the end, it looks a little like the trumpets
angels are shown playing in medieval art.
"Or at least it did to the Germans, who started calling it the
Engellisches Horn, or angel’s horn. Can you see the hilarious
misunderstanding that’s about to happen? Well, that happened.
The Italians thought the Germans called it the English Horn, so
they translated it to corno inglese. The French got it from the
Italians, and called it the cor anglais. The British got it from
the French, and presumably stared at it, thought ‘We can’t call
that an English horn! It’s nothing to do with us, we’ve only
just this minute seen one!’ …and I suppose decided just to keep
the French name to save embarrassment.
"But that is rationality itself compared to what happened with
the “French” horn.
"Right. The French horn. It isn’t French, or English… but it is
a horn. So that’s something. (In fact, horn players just call it
‘the horn’, and they wish you would too, but they can’t make
you.) This story is simpler than the cor anglais one, but even
more gloriously stupid.
"The French were famous for making beautiful hunting-horn type
horns: curly tubes that made a nice noise when you blew through
them. Then the Germans came up with a more complicated horn with
slides and crooks and valves and what-have-you. So British horn
players started calling the horns they played in orchestras
French Horns, to make it clear they were having nothing to do
with those funny looking new German horns with all the bits
hanging off them. But the thing is… slides and crooks and valves
and what-have-you are a really good idea. You can play tunes
with them and everything. So, before long, in a brilliantly
British combination of ruthless pragmatism and equally ruthless
face-saving, British horn players were playing German horns… but
still calling them French horns.
"In summary then: the cor anglais, or English horn, is a
Silesian oboe that the Italians thought the Germans thought was
English, but the Germans actually thought looked angelic.
Whereas the French horn is a German horn that the British called
the French horn to distinguish it from the German horn… which is
what it is.
"All clear? Good. Carry on."
*****************************************************
Page 1 of 1