jago

u/jago@lemmy.ca
0 posts · 64 comments

Recent posts

No posts.

Recent comments

Welp, TIL. Thank you. :)

While absolutely conceding the synonymous property of the two phrases, I will further confess to never having encountered the francified version, which seems unfair since they had it first.

As a reference source I bristle at Merriam-Webster's citing only four recent examples from current year (2026) and one more from only a year earlier. That's utterly -- nay, actively -- useless to establish provenance or actual etymological information. But that's on par for M-W. Etymonline's result for "petty" was more useful.

A DDG search on '"petit theft" provenance' results was more fruitful, and maybe where your own AFAICT info came from(?):

I'll chalk-up the difference to mutual provinciality and the Atlantic USAian coast's complicated history with the French. ;-)

That’s just not how wealth works.

Would you expand on that, in the context of previous replies that point out that this is meant as a simplified analogy of the value of one's own time?

How does wealth work? This is not a loaded question.