This post is not about a problem, explanation, and solution.
Instead, it’s about an interesting word whose use is designated as Chiefly Southern Louisiana and Southeast Texas.
I first saw this word when I moved to Houston, Texas. It was on the sign of a popular restaurant and was written with an apostrophe and ‘s’ as “Lagniappe’s”.
I don’t know whether this apostrophe-‘s’ form on the sign was meant to be a possessive or was supposed to be a plural noun but was a blunder by a sign maker who is part of the crowd of sign makers who insert apostrophes where they don’t belong.
Leaving aside the possessive-apostrophe/plural issue and focusing on the singular noun, a “lagniappe” is something that is added to a purchase as a gift by a merchant, to say “Thank you!” for doing business with the merchant.
A commercial, mass-marketing version of a “lagniappe” could be a cosmetics bag given with a purchase of Lancôme perfume. However, the noun “lagniappe” is traditionally reserved for what an individual merchant adds, such as a small bag of fertilizer when the customer buys several flower bulbs.
The noun originally was “yapa” — Quechuan for that which is added.
Spanish speakers in Mexico turned this into “la ñapa”.
I don’t know where the French speakers from Louisiana first heard “la ñapa” and converted it into the French spelling — “lagniappe” — for the same pronunciation.
But I imagine that the greater Houston area could have been that location, given its mingling of people from Mexico and people from New Orleans and other French-speaking parts of southern Louisiana.
So there you have it: an American English word tied to Houston at the intersection of Spanish and French speakers.