Humorous Etymologies

A few will be aware I have been known to speak on various subjects over the years. Fundamentally these all revolve around my favourite subject of etymology. Have always enjoyed bringing this fascinating subject to others. It’s not for me to say whether the audiences have, although many have asked me to return.

Thought it might be worthwhile sharing a snippet or two from these etymological presentations, continuing with Humorous Etymologies. This talk features a look at some of the more ludicrous ways words which, coined to mean one thing, were later used in a completely different context. For example the gasket found in all engines began as meaning 'a little girl' and later used to mean 'small rope'; easel, that used by artists, began as a Dutch word meaning 'donkey'; orange, that is the colour not the fruit, was originally called 'yellow-red'; quack originally meant 'the croaking of frogs'; and inch, the measurement, began as 'thumb'. There is a PowerPoint presentation to accompany this talk if required, but as a taster let’s look at a couple of words and their origins.

Sycophant – defined as ‘a person who acts obsequiously toward another in order to gain advantage’, it comes to English from Greek and originally meant ‘fig smuggler’. During the days of the Greek city states, Athens was keen to ensure its own success instead of its rivals and banned the export of foodstuffs outside the city walls. They had no problem exporting their own products, what they didn’t want was the food brought in being purchased and then taken away. Figs, having a comparatively long life and rather good for you, were a favourite to try and smuggle out as they were easy to secrete around the body. In order to get others to point the finger of accusation, Athenian law actively encouraged blackmailing for profit as the authorities often failed to bring the smugglers to justice. Those who most often faced charges were fig smugglers.

Punch – the drink, not the assault – comes from a Sanskrit word meaning ‘five’, as the traditional punch contained five ingredients. Indeed, the other use of ‘punch’ comes from the drink, it alluding to the five ingredients (four fingers and a thumb).

One more?

Penguin, those famously flightless birds are named from the Welsh meaning ‘white head’. Now, look at every picture of every species of penguin and they all have black heads. The error comes from the black and white bird resembling the great auk, another black and white sea bird but one with a white top to its head. Now the great auk is said to be extinct, however perhaps they have fooled everyone and have simply disguised themselves as penguins by wearing a close-fitting hat.

If you think you know someone who would like to hear me speak on this subject, drop me a line.

Homonyms, Etymologically Speaking: O

Many words have two meanings, sometimes more, which are often very different. Such words have identical spelling and pronunciation, they are known as homonyms. Here I continue an A to Z list of such words and look at how that word came to have two different meanings.

O is for orange, and the pretty obvious choice for 'O' as it enables us to examine the age-old chicken and egg question as to which came first, the fruit or its colour. The answer is surprisingly easy, for we have to show the orange was known as such in the late 14th century (albeit as the tree more than its fruit) while the colour was known as red-yellow for some time after that. The fruit originated in India with Sanskrit naranga-s 'orange tree', sadly nothing earlier than that is known.

Whilst on the subject of such posers, we do not which came first the chicken or the egg. It was the egg, and by a staggering period of time. The chicken was domesticated by man about 10,000 years ago, having diverged from the junglefowl about 58,000 years ago. A long time, most certainly, but a blink of the eye in the life of the Earth and life on it, for eggs were certainly used by all manner of creatures before chickens - dinosaurs, fish, and just about every multi-cellular creature to evolve in the sea all began life as an egg (this applies to humans, too). Hence, eggs have been around for at least 500 million years.

The chicken and egg question has an answer, because the question is wrong. It should be, which came first the chicken or the chicken egg? The answer is the chicken, because until there's a chicken to lay the egg, it won't be a chicken egg.

Homonyms, Etymologically Speaking: J

Many words have two meanings, sometimes more, which are often very different. Such words have identical spelling and pronunciation, they are known as homonyms. Here I continue an A to Z list of such words and look at how that word came to have two different meanings.

J is for jam, be it a fruit preserve, or in the sense of wedged, tightly packed, or even in the musical sense. Taking these in order, the preserve is has only been known as 'jam' since around 1730, this almost certainly from the method of production in crushing the fruit. As a verb it has only been seen since 1716, but likely comes from the Old English cham 'to bite, gnash' and still seen in English (albeit probably only preserved by classic comics) 'chomp'.

Other uses such as the jamming of machinery, seen since 1851; the jamming of radio signals, since 1914; and to play impromptu music from 1935.

Homonyms, Etymologically Speaking: D

Many words have two meanings, sometimes more, which are often very different. Such words have identical spelling and pronunciation, they are known as homonyms. Here I continue an A to Z list of such words and look at how that word came to have two different meanings.

D is for date, not only a part of the calendar but also a fruit. Taking the calendar term first, it came to English from French date with the modern meaning, and no surprise to find this coming from Latin data meaning 'to give', and ultimately from Proto-Indo-European do also 'to give'. Meanwhile the fruit can be traced to Old French date, Old Provencal datil, Latin dactylus, Greek daktylos, all of which are easy to recognise as being related to the words for the hand. Whether this refers to the resemblance of the fruit to fingers/thumbs, or whether the leaf of the date palm resembles the palm of the hand is still being argued.

Talking of Fruit

We are advised to eat five portions of fruit, and vegetables, each and every single day. They come in several colours, an array of shapes, numerous sizes, and generally speaking the sweeter they are the more we like them. This is of course exactly what the plant desires, to get us to eat its fruit and spread its seeds far and wide.

However there must have been a time when someone first picked or harvested the fruit for eating. In order to pass on the information that such made good eating it was given a name. Of course there was no lavish celebration and cutting of a ceremonial ribbon, not even for those fruits which have been cultivated to produce heavier crops, more appealing colours, and better flavours.

So why were the vegetables named and what, if anything, do they mean? Taking them in no particular order we start with the apple. Doubtless this was among the earliest of fruit, although note the apple is never actually mentioned in Genesis, it is said to be the "fruit of the forbidden tree". This fits with the use of 'apple' as the generic term for all fruit until the seventeenth century - actually this did not include berries but did encompass nuts, which does seem rather confusing today.

Certainly the word can be seen in Old English aeppel, Gaulish avallo, Old Irish ubull, and Lithuanian obuolys as having a common root in Proto-Indo-European abel. It seems likely the word was applied to fruit in general for millennia, especially when we consider the French pomme 'apple' is derived from Latin pomum which again meant simply 'fruit'. Note also that the French for potato pomme de terre means 'earth apple', Middle English eorthaeppla or 'earth apples' referred to cucumbers, and tomatoes were once known as 'love apples', which would tend to confirm the original 'apple' was any fruit.

A peach gets its name from Persis meaning 'Persia' and later seen as 'Persian apple', while nectarine describes 'the nectar peach'. A quince is named after the seaport in Crete through which it was imported from its native Persia, thus telling us of 'the apple of Kydonia'. The pomegranate is from Latin pome grenate meaing 'the apple of many seeds'.

Of course the origins of many fruits depended upon when they were introduced to western Europe. Some were already being cultivated here such as the apricot, which can be traced back through Catalan aberoc, Portuguese albricoque, Arabic al-birquq, Byzantine Greek berikokkia, and ultimately from Latin (malum) praecoquum telling us it was 'the early-ripening (fruit)'.

Note the many names of fruit which are used as colours were applied to the fruit first, although both black currant and red currant were named for their colour, the word currant being a corruption of Corinth, where they were cultivated.

The avocado is a Spanish word meaning 'lawyer' and related to advocate. However this is a corruption of the earlier aguacate, from the original Nahuatl word ahuakatl meaning 'testicle' and a reference to its shape. On the subject of body parts, banana is a Spanish and/or Portuguese loan word, thought to have originated in West African Wolof word meaning simply 'food', although the Arabic banan or 'finger' cannot be discounted entirely. The date comes from the Greek daktylos meaning 'finger, toe' and suggesting it was shaped like the human digits.

Many fruits are berries, these include the blueberry and blackberry, both named for their colour. Raspberry was once seen as raspis berry from raspoie meaning 'thicket'. The origins of strawberry have never been certain, although it certainly does not come from the spreading of straw around the plants to keep the fruit clear of the damp soil. It may come from the seeds, which resemble straw dust particles.

Cranberry was originally applied to the Old World variety, thought to be from kraan or 'crane' with the stamens said to resemble the beaks of this bird. They took the word with them when settling in the New World and gave it to the similar if larger fruit found there. In England the European variety was known as the fenberry for the habitat in which it grew wild. Loganberries are a man-made strain created by crossing a blackberry and a raspberry, it was named after James H. Logan who produced the first fruit. Elderberry is another lost in the mists of time, the best guess is it is said to resemble to the alder tree.

Melon is from the Greek melopepon or 'gourd apple', from a Proto-Indo-European mahla 'grapevine, branch'. This was later seen in the Latin peponem and Middle French pompon which meant 'melon' but also gave the name of the pumpkin. Cherry originated in Greek kerasian but came to English with the Normans and cherise.

Of the citrus fruits the clementine is the most recent. In 1926 an accidental hybrid of a tangerine and an orange produced the fruit named after Father Clement Rodier in the garden of his Algerian orphanage. Tangarines were named after the Moroccan port of Tangiers from where they were first exported. Mandarins are said to be named after the colour of the robes worn by these Chinese officials. The etymology of the orange itself is unknown, although it would have been 'a norange' not 'an orange' but for confusion in the Middle Ages when it was first used as a colour.

Lemons derive their name from Old French limon and earlier meaning 'citrus fruit', hence it was originally a generic term. Lime has identical origins in Arabic limun the collective noun from limah and also meaning 'citrus fruits'. The grapefruit was so-called for it grows in clusters, similar to the grapes which, themselves come from Proto-Germanic krappon meaning 'hook' and assumed to be how they were picked. Incidentally the original English word was winberige 'the wine berry'. Similarly the name of the raisin, from a tongue related to Latin racemus meaning 'cluster of grapes'

It was the shape which gave a name to the pineapple, said to resemble the pine cone. The costard was the original Saxon name for the apple, although it is nothing like the modern varieties but is distinctly 'ribbed' and that is exactly what the name tells us. Another tropical fruit is the mango, which comes from Tamil man kay 'the tree fruit'. Among the earliest of fruits to have been gathered are sloes. Collected for millenia, as the fruit of the blackthorn it is from Proto-Indo-European sleie telling of its colour of 'bluish-black'.

One thing connects all of these names, absolutely none were named by a marketing department and could never be said to advertise themselves. This is particularly true of a modern creation, although the word ugli probably looks uglier than the fruit.

Vegetable Discourse

We are advised to eat five portions of vegetables, and fruit, each and every single day. They come in several colours, an array of shapes, numerous sizes, and as children we seem engineered to loathe them.

However there must have been a time when someone picked, gathered or cropped the fruit or plant for eating. In order to pass on the information that such made good eating it was given a name. Of course there was no lavish celebration and cutting of a ceremonial ribbon, not even for those vegetables which have been cultivated to produce heavier crops, more appealing colours, and better flavours.

So why were the vegetables named and what, if anything, do they mean? Taking them in no particular order we start with the artichoke, said to be derived from Arabic al-kharshof meaning 'ground thorny', this derivation is simply another example of folk etymology and the true origins are unknown.

The bean is a general term for any plant where the plant forms its seed in a pod. Sometimes the whole pod is eaten, at other times just the seed as is the case of the broad bean which is thought to have been the original variety foraged by Eurasian hunter-gatherers and there is evidence of its cultivation in Thailand ten thousand years ago. That this is a such a simple word is a clue to its ancient origins, the early etymology is unknown, but almost certainly would have described it as simply 'seed' or that it was found in 'the pod'. The kidney bean, the most commonly eaten variety, clearly takes its addition from the shape of its seeds.

Known as 'grass' in the vales around the lower Severn where it is famously grown, the asparagus comes through Latin, Greek and ultimately Persian asparag an apt description of a plant which resembles a 'sprout, shoot'. Similarly broccoli comes from the plural of broccolo, the Italian for 'the flowering top of the cabbage' being of the same family. The cabbage itself is from a Northern French dialect term caboche meaning 'head', probably originally describing its shape and yet within living memory it was regualrly referred to as a 'head of cabbage'. The cauliflower, also related, is from Italian caoli-fiore or 'the flowered cabbage', for obvious reasons.

In North America it is referred to as the 'eggplant', because the earliest varieties known were white or yellow, in Britain it is the aubergine. The name comes from Catalan alberginia, through Arabic al-badinjan, Persian badin-gan, and Sanskrit vatimgana and is best translated from the scientific name of Solanum melongena, the reason it is known as the 'meloongen' in the Caribbean, and quite literally 'the plant that cures the wind'.

The carrot has also been . We can trace the evolution of the name through Middle French carotte, Latin carote, and Greek karoton to the Indo-European root ker meaning 'horn' and a description of the shape of the taproot. Although not appearing in Britain until long after the Norman Conquest, its use is known since the earliest farming times and was probably gathered much earlier. Note the original carrots were gathered for their leaves and seeds.

Celery was not seen in the English language before 1664. While it is the stalks which are sought today, the leaves bear a resemblance to parsley. The name can be traced to French celeri, Italian seleri, Latin selinon, and ultimately to Greek selinon which means 'parsley'. Clearly there was some confusion between the similar leaves of the plants in the earliest days. Chives are members of the family of onions and derive their name from the French cive and ultimately the Latin cepa, meaning 'onion'.

The courgette is treated as a vegetable but is strictly a fruit. The plant is a member of the squash family and gets its name French courge meaning 'little squash'. Note the American preference for zucchini is simply the Italian and means the same.

Endive can be traced back through Latin ediva, Greek entubioi, both of which mean 'chicory' to which it closely related, and ultimately from Egyptian tybi the eqivalent of 'January' and suggesting it was an important time in the growing of this plant.

Gherkins are effectively small cucumbers, although today each is cultivated quite separately, their name comes from the evolution through Dutch agurkje, Low German agurke, Lithuanian agurkas, Polish ogurek, ultimately from Greek agouros 'youth' and understood as 'unripe'. Clearly the original pickled gherkin was a result of cropping immature cucumbers.

The modern name for the leek comes from Old English lece, however this was also the generic term for all vegetables. It should be realised that vegetables in Saxon England were very different to today, most of which would be considered wild and never seen to have any culinary uses today.

Lettuce is ultimately from Latin for 'milky stem' and referring to the white secretions when cut. Maize, a plant from the New World, has certainly been corrupted by both similar French and Spanish words, yet the origin is Taino mahiz meaning 'life-giving' and clearly a staple food for thousands of years. A mangelwurzel is similar to a beetroot but chiefly used for fodder, it comes from German mangel 'chard or beet' and wurzel 'root', hence the German for beetroot.

From the Gallo-Roman mussiro, a word still used to describe a white mask used in an old theatrical fom, comes the modern mushroom. Mustard refers to the plant, whose pungent seeds were crushed and mixed with wine to form the paste called mustard, the name also given to its colour. Here the name appears to come from Latin meaning 'new wine', hence product gave a name to plant which was earlier likely referred to as simply cress.

Soya has a similarly confusing etymology, where the English version is derived from the Japanese pronunciation of shoyu which referred to 'soya sauce'. While edamame is used in English to refer to a dish made from these beans, it is actually derived from the Japanese name of eda mame meaning 'the twig bean'.

The onion can be traced back through Middle English unyon Old French oignon, to Latin unio and meaning 'oneness' or 'unity', a reference to the concentric rings of the bulb. While the origin of the name of the turnip is lost is a series of corruptions, the North American name of rutabaga is a Swedish dialect term meaning 'baggy root'.

Parsnips were once thought to be a kind of turnip, hence the identical suffix, when it came from the French pasnaie and Latin pastinum a kind of fork. That other similar root vegetable, the swede, was so-called for its introduction from Sweden.

The pea is derived from Latin pisum and Greek pison, both of which mean simply 'pea' and thus it seems likely this is, like the bean' from a very early Indo-European root word of unknown yet simplistic beginnings. Pumpkin is a word from Old French pompom and ultimately derived from the Greek pepon meaning 'ripen'. Radish is a simple name with an even simpler meaning, it is from Latin radix or 'root'.

Shallot is a type of onion which can be traced back to Ashkelon, the Israeli city thought to be where the vegetable originated by the classical Greeks. Spinach has a long history but one not seen until 1530 in the English language. It arrived here via French epinard, Catalan espinac, Arabic asbinakh, and back to Persian aspanakh literally meaning 'green hand'.

The tomato, which of course is famously a fruit but will be included as it is used as if it were a vegetable, comes from South America where the Aztecs called it xitomatl meaning 'plump thing with a navel'. Other cultures from the Americas took this as tomatl from which we get the modern name. The scientific name is even more interesting, for the literal translation of lysopersicum is 'wolf peach'. As the tomato belongs to the nightshade family, and those plants are associated with German werewolf legends, this was considered an appropriate description.

Of course the most common vegetable in western Europe is the potato which comes from Spanish patata, itself from Taino batata 'the sweet potato' and Quechua papa 'potato'. Hence there has been confusion between the two historically, although today we generally use the term yam for the sweet variety, itself from Portuguese inhame meaning simply 'edible'. What is seen as a slang term 'spud' actually came from the tool used to dig them up the 'spade'. Other early descriptions for the potato, to distinguish it from the sweet or common potato, include Virginia potato, and even the bastard potato.

It strikes me as a pity we weren't treated to John-Boy on The Waltons asking one of his innumerable siblings to "pass the bastard potatoes". I'll leave you to write your own responses.