Some people’s strength is visible on the outside. When I see a well-muscled person, I assume that he or she is physically strong, but that visible muscle may not show his her true strength — the thing that he or she is best at, or has the strongest ability in. Whatever that skill, whether it’s something physical, mental, artistic, academic, philanthropic, etc., that skill can be called a person’s “forte.”
forte — a noun meaning “one’s strong point” or the thing in which one excels
fuerte — the Spanish cognate of the same meaning, (“strong point” = “punto fuerte).
These words come from Latin’s fortis which means “strong.”
First, let’s look at the word we use in English, “forte.” Originally, we borrowed the word from French to refer to the “strongest part of the blade” on a sword in the art of fencing. Then, the word took on a metaphorical meaning and started to be used to describe the strongest aspect of a person. Someone very skilled with the sword could say that fencing is his “forte” while someone who is adept with a brush might say that painting is her “forte.” When that happened, the pronunciation of the word started to shift, and now we have some people who think the word should remain as “forte” without the “e” being pronounced because we took if from French, and they don’t pronounce that final “e,” and others who believe the “e” should be pronounced the way the Italians do since we also use the word to refer to and to describe a “musical tone or passage that is played loudly” — or with great strength of sound and tone. Thus, “forte.” (for-tay)
The more I delve into the word’s etymology, the more inclined I am to not pronounce the final “e,” but I also know that a couple times when I opted to do that, I was “corrected” by someone else who clearly didn’t know the history of the word. Thus, pick your poison, and use either — you’re technically correct either way.
The Spanish cognate of “fuerte” is a very common vocabulary word when you are learning the language. It simply means “strong,” so you will learn it early on while learning adjectives to describe people. Typically, you will learn these adjectives in opposites, so you’ll get “débil” for “weak” — maybe you can see its connection to “debility.”
My students would often connect “fuerte” with the word “force” — as it takes a lot of force to lift weights to become strong. Others would connect it to a “fort,” (not a blanket one!) and how it has to be “strong” to defend an area.
That word can be “fuerte” in Spanish, but it more often is “fortaleza.”
A few other words that deal with playing music in a strong way are “fortemente,” “fortissimo,” and even “fortississimo.” The last one means “with greatest loudness.”
In Spanish, you’d have “fuertemente” for “fortemente,” and this adverb can also simply mean “strongly.” The passage would be described as “fortísima” for something feminine and “fortísimo” for something masculine while “fortississimo” is a direct cognate with a slightly different pronunciation.
The word “fortitude” also is related to “forte.” “Fortitude” has to do with one’s “strength of mind.” This is “fortaleza,” like the word for “fort” in Spanish. If you “fortify” something, you make it strong. In Spanish that verb is “fortalecer.” The act of fortifying something, or even a longer word for a “fort,” is “fortification,” which is “fortificaciόn” in Spanish.
If you have a consonant that needs to be “strongly” enunciated, that is a “fortis,” just like the Latin word for “strong.” Examples are the “t” in “toe,” the “p” in “play,” the “d” in “door,” and even the “f” in “forte.”
So, what is your “forte?” Mine is writing and anything dealing with words — reading, Scrabble, crossword puzzles, linguistics, Spanish, etc. If you’ve never looked at my books, please visit my website and see what all I write: Tammy's author page. I’m working on novel number seven, and my latest feature news article is in today’s Norfolk Daily News.
I’d love to hear what your forte is. Leave a comment.
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Until next time.
Tammy Marshall
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