Tulle, as you may know, is a fabric that is useful for its light, fluffy, translucent character. It’s really a stiff fine open mesh made with fine thread, and it is used mainly in things such as tutus and wedding gowns to give a puffy and airy look with some volume, and in veils to somewhat obscure the face while still allowing the wearer to see.
Which is why tulle makes me think of the 11th chapter of the Tao Te Ching. Here’s the translation by Gia-Fu Feng and Jane English:
Thirty spokes share the wheel’s hub;
It is the center hole that makes it useful.
Shape clay into a vessel;
It is the space within that makes it useful.
Cut doors and windows for a room;
It is the holes which make it useful.
Therefore profit comes from what is there;
Usefulness from what is not there.
Usefulness! Well, that’s a characteristic of a tool, isn’t it? In fact, use and utility and utensil all come from the same Latin root that descended to French outil ‘tool’. And so this tulle is a tool made useful in the whole by its holes.
But that’s not why it’s called tulle, even if tulle and tool are pronounced the same in English (by most speakers). No – it’s a French fabric, after all (the first tulle tutus appeared in Paris), and it’s called tulle, not outil. It is in fact named after the town of Tulle, near Limousin (another eponymous town). It’s the capital of the department of Corrèze, which is named after the river that flows through Tulle. And, incidentally, in French Tulle (and tulle) is pronounced [tyl], which is to say that the u is the same high front rounded vowel as the u in French lune and the ü in German rühren and the y in Finnish tyly.
Tulle (the town) winds with the Corrèze along both banks and runs steeply and briefly up the hills on either side; it’s an ancient town with stairs running in narrow passages between the stone walls of buildings. It was at a trade crossroads, and its river powered mills for industry. It has been known for producing things such as paper and guns, but also, since the 1600s, for lace.
But Tulle earned its name much earlier on the thread of time. There was a Gaulish settlement there before the Romans came, but when the Romans arrived they set up the usual Roman things, including a temple in honour of Tutela – the personification of the concept of a tutelary deity (guardian god). Roman towns typically had tutelary deities, but the practice was not to say who the deity was, so that the enemy could not do a ritual calling out the god by name and so weakening the protection. The god’s function was enabled by the presence of the god but also by the absence of the god’s name. The god could see your enemies, but they could not see the god.
And so (apparently) from this habitual anonymity the more abstract goddess Tutela emerged. And this particular town, it is further thought, got its name from the No Name™ Guardian Goddess whose temple had displaced the earlier Gaulish fort. But that name was individualized over time by erosion from the currents of language usage, and Tutela became Tulle.
But wait. There’s one more thing. The protective power of absence – what is not there – may extend even further. Littré quotes Jules Verne’s Géographie illustrée de la France et de ses colonies:
Il est bon d’ajouter ici que, contrairement à une opinion généralement répandue, les tissus qui portent le nom de tulle n’ont jamais été confectionnés dans la ville ni dans l’arrondissement [de Tulle].
My translation:
It’s worth adding here that, contrary to general opinion, the fabrics that bear the name tulle have never been made in the town or area [of Tulle].
But then Littré adds “Mais cela ne nous dit pas d’où le nom de tulle a pris naissance” (But that doesn’t tell us where the name tulle originated).
Ah well. Protected by the veil of time. Well, Tulle has been a useful tool no less, and tulle has netted the town some renown.
Sesquiotica 