Keitht wrote:
There seems to be some francophobes around who are unable to understand
that the English language is made up of words from lots of forriners.

What would they substitute 'peloton' with (has to be seven letters or
less?

Pack.

Mob.

Field (in a racing sense).

The French jargon word "peloton" (unheard in the UK before a very few years
ago) is not a word that has been loaned to English. It is not widely used. It
is not used at all outside of a self-defined group of "enthusiasts" (not to
say "anoraks" - which *is* a loan word).

It is a pure pseudo-intellectual signifier (and possibly useful in that role).

BTW: I am no Francophobe, nor yet a Europhobe. Literally, some of my best
friends are German, French, Belgian, Dutch and Italian and I often travel and
stay in all those countries. Just came back from a wonderful week in France
last Friday.