The transformation of asparagus into sparrow-grass,
as mentioned yesterday, is understandable and this has led me to think about
other words that have altered over time, often disguising their origins. Take,
for example, the name of one of our commonest flowers – the dandelion.
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| Dandelion |
It would be perfectly understandable to assume that this name is a compound of dandy
and lion, with dandy denoting something showy or fancy (as in Yankee
Doodle Dandy), and lion relating to the big cat – hence a bright,
showy flower with a fine leonine mane of petals. Except it isn’t. The name
actually derives from the shape of the leaves, which have tooth-like
indentations along their edge, called in French dent de lion (Lion’s
tooth), and in mediaeval Latin dens lionis. In fact, in England, the
plant was once called piss-a-bed, a reference to the diuretic property
of the plant.
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| Dandelion |
Turning to another plant, the artichoke, this name comes through
the Italian articoccio, the French artichault and Spanish alcachofa,
all from the Arabic harsaf, harziaf and harsciaf. When folk
etymology gets to work, there are derivations invented that link the word to arci
– arch (great), and cloffo – horse-collar, other place the
word in hearty and choke, either something that chokes the
heart or sticks in the throat; or something with a choke, or a chock,
at its heart. Other theories turn to the French, with haut – high,
great, and chaud – heat, warm, or even changing the chau
to chou – cabbage.
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| Artichoke |
The Romans ate artichokes (it’s just that we
don’t know which bits of them), and called them carduus, a cover-all word for
thistles, and from which we get the word cardoon, the modern word for
the wild or uncultivated artichoke. Sharing a name, and distantly related, is
the Jerusalem artichoke, which you might be forgiven for thinking comes from
the Holy Land. Nope. Afraid not. The name is a corruption on the Italian name
of the plant – girasole artichoke – gira al sole meaning sun-flower,
and with the usual English gift for garbling foreign languages this became Jerusalem.
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| Jerusalem Artichokes |
There is a story that, when the Crystal Palace was being built, a large number
of sparrows became trapped inside, roosting in the trees and beams, and
threatening to besmirch the visitors with their copious droppings. Various
solutions were attempted to rid the Great Exhibition space of the unwanted
visitors, all to no avail, until things got so bad that there was only one
alternative – consult the Duke of Wellington. Old Nosey turned up, took one
look, and provided the answer –
“Try sparrow-hawks.”
So, sparrow-hawks,
hawks that hunt sparrows, right? Wrong. It comes from spar-hawk, spar
is an old word for rock (as in feldspar or fluorspar), and the bird is a
rock-hawk (another name for the pigeon is rock-dove).
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| Sparrow-Hawk |
Staying
with birds, we talk about larks and larking around, meaning fun and fooling
about, it’s common enough in Dickens,
‘We should be as gay as larks’
says Mr Brass, in The Old Curiosity Shop. It makes sense, we are as
carefree as the merry bird of dawn, singing and gambolling with no thought of
tomorrow. But lark is a corruption of laik, a common enough word
in northern English dialects (I use it
myself frequently), which comes from Old English lāk and the Anglo Saxon lác, meaning to
sport, to play or simply to mess about.
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| Lark |
I hope you are never troubled with thrush,
the fungal infection oral candidiasis, but can there possibly be a link
to the bird? Yes, there is – thrush, the bird, takes its name from throstle,
a name still used in northern England, from Anglo Saxon þrosle; the
disease takes its name from þrot-swyle – throat swelling, with an
old name for the wind-pipe being þrot-bolla, throte-bolle, which
we find in Chaucer,
“And by the throte-bolle he caught Alein.”
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| Thrush |
To return
to foodstuffs, you may be familiar with the term forcemeat, which is
used to make pates, quenelles, sausages, roulades and galantines. So, does the
name come from the action of forcing the meat into a skin or a mould, or
does it come from the forcing, or concentrating, of flavour in the meat?
Well, it’s neither. Originally, the word was farced-meat, from the
French farcer, to chop or mince. And by the by, the name of hash,
as in corned beef hash, does not come from hash, as in to make a hash of
something, a mess or lumping together, but again from the French hacher,
to chop or mince.
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| Minced Meat |
Apple-pie order, meaning the opposite of a hash and
referring to something that is perfect and proper, has nothing to do with food
and derives from the French too, cap-à-pie is a term applied to a
soldier fully caparisoned from head to foot; the schoolboy prank of the apple-pie
bed, were the sheets are rearranged to bring the top and the bottom closer
together, also comes from the head to toe idea.
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| Apple Pie |
Speaking of tops and bottoms
brings me to the bitter end – not as you’d think referring to the dregs
of something, the sour remains that have been left over, the part that might
leave a bitter taste in the mouth. The bitts (or bits) are spars to the fore of
a sailing ship, around which bights, chains or cables are secured, and when
these ropes are played out (as when an anchor is lowered), the part that
remains aboard the vessel is the bitter’s end, changed in time to the bitter
end, the end of a rope where no more remains to be played out.
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| Playing it out to the bitter end |
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