WTN: cache, cachet, cash
James Harbeck
cache, cachet, cash
It’s no secret that wealth comes with cachet, but the catch is that you need some place to cache your cash, eh.
There’s one word in that sentence, by the way, that seems to trip up a lot of people. Did you catch it? It’s not cachet– everyone seems to know that you say that like “cash, eh.” It’s cache. Which I’ve heard a few ways – even with a long a (but still with the ch as “sh,” not “k” – which would take the cake!). Many people seem to think that it’s said like caché. But in fact that last e is… well, not caché, i.e., hidden, but silent. You should say cache just like you say cash. It’s true that cache means ‘hide’ and that a cache is a place where things are hidden and ‘hidden’ is caché, but the noun is not formed from the past participle.
Anyway. You know that a cache is a place you hide things, right? On your computer, the cache is just temporary storage, and not really hidden, but everywhere else, it’s temporary storage of a particular kind: not meant to be found. It’s where you stash your cash – or other treasure – when you have to dash. As I said, cacher means ‘hide’; it comes from a Latin word, coactus, meaning ‘compelled’ or ‘assembled’. It is not related to cash, but that’s almost surprising; cash comes from French caisse ‘money box’, from Latin capsa ‘box’, from capio ‘I take’. Cash is closely related to case and chase and catch and not much more distantly to capture. So when you chase someone and catch them and capture their case full of cash, those are all related words, but when you cache the cash in a cache, that’s just a coincidence of sound.
On the other hand, cachet is quite closely related to cache. That may seem odd, since cachet means ‘prestige’ and as such is by definition not hidden. You can’t cache cachet! The trick, though, is that cachet referred first to the royal seal on a letter – often a letter condemning someone to prison or exile (meaning they will be hidden, but that’s not the connection). The seal was called a cachet, Littré explains, “parce que le cachet cache” – it hides. But this seal, being from the king, carried significance – a letter with a cachet could have prestige (if it wasn’t tossing you out of the country or into the dungeon, of course). And in the broader sense, a cachet was a distinguishing mark. From that, we came to use it for a distinguishing mark of prestige.
But when we think of things that have cachet, it does still seem that while the signifiers are eye-catching, they’re not clashing or crashing; quiet wealth, indicated through subtle details, is more esteemed than vulgar excess. The seals of approval can open meaning to those who know, but such knowledge itself signifies status. To have cachet, we discover, you do need more than just cash, eh.
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