Duck, it’s a coup de gras!

On Sunday, September 2, 2007, Chris Matthews, speaking as host of his morning talk show, listed some Republican politicians whose behavior proved troublesome for the party’s image: Bob Livingston, Newt Gingrich, Mark Foley, David Vitter and “the latest coup de gras [sic]: Larry Craig.”

Wikipedia’s explanation under Coup de grâce is characteristically illuminating:

The French pronunciation of the phrase is [ku də gras], but English speakers sometimes mispronounce it as [ku de’gra]. Not pronouncing the final “c” is an example of a hyperforeignism: in French, this mispronunciation sounds like coup de gras, which means “a blow of fat.”

I didn’t know coup de gras was representative of a linguistic phenomenon; I wondered where Mr. Matthews might have encountered that mispronunciation. Now, for many viewers who will be citing The Chris Matthews Show as the place they heard it spoken that way, another hyperforeignism has been added—or its presence confirmed—in their own idiolects.