Dear Mr. H,

For what it is worth–and I have explained this before to others not from New England–that frappe is a single-syllable word rhyming with wrap. There is no accent on the final e. Especially in the Boston area, if you order a milk shake, you will get flavored milk with no ice cream. If you want ice cream in it, you order a frappe. My favorite flavor of frappe, which predates Starbucks by a century or so, is a coffee frappe, made with coffee ice cream. Coffee ice cream is common in most of eastern New Engand, but pretty much a specialty everywhere else.

Frapuccino is simply a truncation of frozen capuccino since it does not have ice cream in it–no comparison with a coffee frappe made by Steve’s or Brigham’s in Boston. (Brigham’s famous flavor introduced to rest of the world in 2004 was Reverse the Curse ice cream. Then they had a contest to change the name since the Curse of the Bambino was finally exorcised.)

A former Bostonian