High Praise

I read through Tolkein’s Lord of the Rings trilogy a couple times in my late teens.  For the younger generation who has only seen the movies, you owe it to yourself to discover the incredible way Tolkein crafted his legendary legends.  Tolkein wove everyday words into fantastic adventures.  One of the most vivid images still fixed in my mind is the shrewish Gollum hovering over his ring murmuring, “My Precioussss”.  Eventually, dear little Gollum pays the ultimate price – his life – for the object of his praise.

Oops, I did it again, Precious, Price, Praise.  All related to the IE root per5 meaning to traffic in or to sell.  Today, all these ideas relate to assigning value to something.  When my beloved wife says she does not appreciate my sense of humor, she means she doesn’t find much value in it.  (What’s up with that?)  When you appraise an object, you establish its value or selling price.  Over time, most things lose value - they depreciate.  When you praise something, you are literally celebrating its value by devoting your energy to acknowledging that value.  Gollum sought to possess the precious ring even at the cost of his own life.  That’s about as high praise as you can give!

A related word is interesting.  Preciosity means extreme meticulousness or over-refinement.  Use it in a sentence?  The owner of the antique store had an air of preciosity to him; always fussing over the smallest detail in his collection.

Think about this family of words the next time you go about buying and selling.  Does the price truly reflect the object’s value?

The Pope's Dentures

Most people of prominence wind up having several titles (e.g. President, Commander in Chief, POTUS) so I didn’t worry too much about the Catholic Church’s Pope also being called the Pontiff.  That is not until I saw a dental term that seemed strangely similar – pontic.  Yes, the Pope often wears a hat that looks like a giant tooth, but that’s not usually the way words work.

First let’s take notice of the word Pope, itself.  Pope, comes simply from papa, daddy.  (In fact, in Italy, the Pope is called Il Papa.)  Many religious titles relate to father because of their leadership, mentoring role, including the Jewish rabbi.  So, is Pope related to Pontiff?  No chance.

Pontiff, the leader of a religious organization based in Rome, is related to another word you see all over Italy – ponte.  One of the most famous of these ponte is the Ponte Vecchio – the Old Bridge in Florence.  (Ponte means bridge, vecchio means old – they say their words backwards in most of the world.)  It’s a fascinating structure you should look into.  Pontiff means something to the effect of “bridge maker” or way-shower – a religious concept of helping people find a connection to God.  By the way, to pontificate (one of my favorite words) means to speak as one in authority - the way the pope would speak.

Now, maybe you are getting out ahead of me on the word pontic.  If you have one or two teeth missing with healthy teeth on either side, your fantastic dentist with solve the problem with what?  A bridge.  Technically speaking, the pontic is the artificial tooth fashioned into a dental bridge.

Our IE root is pent meaning to tread or go.  A bridge is a very important structure that helps us go farther.  Path derives from this root as does find (you have to go to find what you are looking for).  Another memorable word from the youth of Baby Boomers is also related – Sputnik, which means "fellow traveler".

Throw Another Blog On The Fire

Today’s word family comes from the IE root leg1.  (The 1 means there are other leg roots that are not related to this one.)  The root leg1 means to collect.  (The -lect of collect comes from this root). Now follow this – the root also leads to the meaning of “spoken”.  Think about it.  Hopefully, when we speak or write, we bring together the words that will effectively communicate our meaning.  First example: legal.  See, over thousands of years, the root leg is still intact.  Legal matters are based on law (a collection of spoken words). Related words include lecture, legislature, elect, neglect, and select.

Continuing with the idea of words, all those school subjects like biology, geology, psychology actually mean “words about _____”.  The Greeks had the word “logos” which just means words.  It strikes me as funny that today a company develops a symbol (like MacDonald’s golden arches) so they don’t have to use words to express their company identity. What’s that called? A logo.  (Ever heard "a picture is worth a thousand words"?)

Remember the era of discovery and captain's notes we find in the ship’s log?  That kind of log is like a diary where words are collected.  But what about that good old tree log?  Trees are cut down and gathered for firewood or for building purposes. Fire logs and captains’ logs come from the same root and meaning – to collect.  Right now, you are reading my word blog – a collection of words, in this case, about words.  Where do you think blog came from?  Blog is a contraction of "web log" (a log on the internet).  It will be interesting to see where blog goes from here.

Consider that log could mean either a piece of wood, a diary of sorts, or even to “log on” to software or website.  Today, a Google search of “log” get’s 751 million hits.  Pretty impressive and that represents the far-flung uses of the word.  “Blog” is a far more limited word, really pretty peculiar.  The word "blog" is only about 12 years old (first used in 1998).  How many hits do you think it will get through a Google search for “blog”? 2.7 billion!!!  Almost four times more hits for “blog” than “log”.  [By way of comparison, the word "love" get's 1.48 billion hits on a Google search.]  Why does blog get more hits than log?  A blog is something that exists on the internet.  If you use the internet to search for an internet-related term, you’re going to get a lot (A LOT) of hits.  But if you walk through a neighborhood, you won’t see many blogs, but you’ll probably see thousands of logs patiently waiting for the fireplace.  That’s a good example of the peculiarity of words and how meanings and uses change over time and circumstance. 

Other words related to this root include logic, lesson, legend, dialect, dialogue, and legitimate.  The word privilege is also related. What is a privilege?  A word or law spoken privately, to just one or a few people.

Of Marbles and Marriage

This time of year, folks up north are getting excited about warmer weather.  In central Alaska, the sporting kind are laying down wagers on the Nenana Ice Classic - when the ice pack on the Tanana River will break up and start flowing out to sea.  Back in the day, the Spring thaw also signaled a sport of another kind to school kids all across town.  When the snow turned to mush and the pussy willows started budding, young’uns dug through their dressers to find that old sock full of marbles that has lain dormant for ten months.

Puries, clearies, cat-eyes, steelies, and boulders get their game on in a seasonal celebration that is dearly memorable – if only a memory.  We played marbles one of two ways, “keeps” or “no keeps”.  “Keeps” meant the winner kept his marble and took mine.  “No keeps” meant we were just having fun. Yeah, some “fun”.  My God-fearing parents cautioned me sternly that playing for keeps was the same as gambling.  Hmmm.  One thing was clear, if you agreed to “play for keeps” at the start of the match, then no whining when you lose.  To renege on the terms at the end of the match, depending on outcome, meant well-deserved social ostracism.  The best way to get a bad rep on the playground was to go back on your pledge.

Across the Northern Hemisphere, springtime is a celebration of bunnies and flowers and abundant new life.  The word May itself is tied to an ancient goddess of fertility.  ‘Tis true.

Now Is the Month of Maying (lyrics by Sir Thomas Morley)

Now is the month of Maying, when merry lads are playing!
Each with his bonny lass, a-dancing on the grass.
                 Fa la la la la!
The Spring, clad all in gladness, doth laugh at Winter's sadness!
And to the bagpipes’ sound, the nymphs tread out the ground!
                 Fa la la la la!
Fie! Then why sit we musing, youth’s sweet delight refusing?
Say, dainty nymphs and speak! Shall we play barley break?
                 Fa la la la la!

Sweet delight refusing?  Of course, all those merry lads, bonny lasses, and dainty nymphs lead to one thing… er, uh, true love and a desire to get married.  That’s the ticket.  Thus, June is the most popular month for weddings.  Now, as things go, two can live as cheaply as one, it just costs twice as much.  So, hubby and/or bride will be ensure they have an income with which to feather the nest.

Turns out that betting (either on the ice pool or marbles), getting married, and making a living have one IE root in common – wadh. This root has the core meaning of “pledge”.  Everything we’ve talked about revolves around the idea of making (and keeping) a pledge.  What is a synonym for betting?  Wagering.  When you bet, you pledge money (or marbles) against a certain outcome.  If you don’t get your outcome, you lose your money.  Wager… wages.  An employer pledges to pay wages for certain work.  It’s just a pledge until you do the work and get paid.  As for marriage, clearly it is a social arrangement based on a pledge, or vow.  I hope you can see that wed is close in sound to wage.  Like any other proposition (that’s a pun), marriage is a forward-looking pledge.  From my perspective; however, unlike not knowing when the ice is going to break up, marriage is a wonder-filled relationship, the outcome of which can be impacted by the earnestness of our pledge to our spouses and our daily decision to follow-through on that pledge.  Marriage is playing for keeps!  Fa la la la la!

Gee, My Shirt Smells Terrific!

Growing up, my parents thought I was anemic so they forced me to eat liver. It was (almost) enough to drive me to vegetarianism. My efforts to avoid eating the wretched meat were clever, but often ill-fated, the result of which was a confrontation where I was defiant and my folks were just plain livid. Oops, I did it again. Liver. Livid. Guess where I’m going with this?

Our IE root today is (s)leiә. (The ‘(s)’ means the s sound often gets lost in words downstream from the root.) It means blue or plum colored. The liver organ is strikingly plum colored or at least it was before I flushed it down the toilet. To be livid means that you are “yelling ‘til you’re blue in the face” or at least that’s how I remember the scolding* I got for flushing the liver down the toilet.

Want a word where the (s) hung aournd? Sloe gin is made from juniper berries which happen to be blue.

The last word to mention is lavender, a bluish or plum colored flower. Its name derives from its color, but there is an “association” with another word. When we want to wash our hands, we go to the lavatory (and use lava soap?). When we wash our clothes we go to the laundry. Laundry and lavatory derive from the IE root leu(ә), close to (s)leiә (blue), but very different meaning. Lavender often gets associated laundry because has long been popular to add the fragrant flower to the wash… which is why my t-shirt smells so good.

*We patched things up, I’m not anemic, and my mom is 95 and happily lives in my home today.

Corned Beef in My Cornucopia

At about age 14, I reported to our country doctor that I had an enflamed lymph node.  Dr. Grumpy looked back at me and said, “Why don’t you just say you have a swollen kernel?”  If I wasn’t such a mild, mannered, temperate, and thoughtful lad I would have shot back, “I don’t know Doc, why don’t we just call you a barber and pay you what you’re worth.”  Like I say, I would never have smarted off like that.  But every time I hear, "there’s a kernel of truth in every lie”, I get this funny feeling I need a haircut.

That said, I’m posting this in the shadow of St Patrick’s Day and I’ve got several pounds of corned beef out on the smoker.  I love me some corned beef.  A few years ago I even learned how to take a fresh brisket and make corned beef.  To my great surprise, the recipe calls for absolutely zero corn.  I wondered if country doc was responsible for this misnomer as well.

As most of us know, corn is actually called “maize” by the Central American natives who first cultivated it.  I don’t know nuthin about Aztec / Mayan etymologies so we’ll leave maize at maize.   As well as being an amateur physician, I was an inveterate etymologist early on.  I always thought Thanksgiving’s cornucopia was where the Native (North) Americans kept their veggies including that fabulous multi-colored corn.  Not so much.

So what’s up with “corn”? Let’s go back to my love of the savory Irish treat – corned beef. The recipe calls for a special variety of salt and pickling spices which is basically aromatic herbs and various kernels of… hey, did you notice that?  Kernels!  Corn derives from the IE root, gre-no which clearly refers to grain, specifically the business end of plant which consists of small seeds or kernels.  No maize is used in the preparation of corned beef, but I love the flavors those little spice kernels impart.

That clears up the corned beef controversy, but what about cornucopia and unicorns and let’s throw in my beloved trumpet (aka: cornet)?  If corn means kernel, what do all these other corns mean?  There is another IE root ker1 which means horn.  Does that make sense?  A cornucopia means “horn of plenty” (-copia as in copious, plenty).  A trumpet / cornet entered the orchestra as a humble horn.  Unicorn is a horse with… you get it.  By the way, rhinoceros and my beloved dinosaur, triceratops also feature horns on their head and in their names.

So, after Doc and I dealt with the swollen kernel, I asked him about this corn on my foot.

Epilogue:  Disappointed in my search for a great local deil with even greater corned beef sammiches, I am not left without options.  My motto is "cook what you like to eat" and I did!  For purists, a traditional corned beef is boiled, a pastrami is smoked.  However, traditional pastrami is cured with juniper berries (kernels of which I have none).  So, please allow me the privilege of introducing you to my hybrid exclusive Smoked Corned Beef Sammich on Perfect Panera Thick Sliced Rye.  Oh MY!!!!!

Italian, French, Mexican... Is There No Pirate Food Category?

Disclaimer: I am not a food paleontologist and by all observations I am an extremely amateur etymologist.  Here, in this post, I will prove my incompetency in both disciplines and likely muddy the waters altogether.

I love to travel and eat so I enjoy reading restaurant reviews.  When it suddenly dawned on me that I was not the only person in the world with these preferences, I began contributing my own reviews.  When the subject of barbeque arises there are always strong opinions voiced in all directions about what makes for the best bbq.  I have some experience on the subject, although again, I'm going to hide safely behind my claim of rock amateur, I mean rank amateur.

Since this is a blog about words and not food, I'm going to try and break down the origins of the word barbeque for us.  There is general agreement that "barbeque" is a term indigenous  to Central America (primarily Mexico) and the Caribbean Islands. Generally speaking, historic barbeque is most similar to the way whole hogs are prepared at a Hawaiian luau. Pit + Fire + Meat is the general formula.  Variations in amount of moisture, spices, time, heat, and meat types add to the diverse character of the genre.  Remember, we’re talking about aboriginal food preparation not the technical method for making crème brûlèe.  Barbeque methods evolved over time based on local preferences and local resources so it is really not plausible to say there is only one way to prepare barbeque.

The word “barbeque” derives from barbacoa – a word which is related to barber (a person who cuts hair and shaves beards). French, Spanish, and Italian all have words which refer to the beard with words beginning barb-.  How do we get from beards to burnt ends?  Unless you are grilling (which is NOT barbeque!), you want to keep the meat and the heat source at a reasonable distance from each other, typically by suspending the meat at some distance above the (rising) heat source.  I think it would be fair to define the origin of barbacoa as specifically referring to cooking meat slowly over an indirect heat source.  In the native home of the barbacoa, the preferred wood for separating the meat from the fire is the ficus barbata – commonly known as the Bearded Fig.  This wood is dense and somewhat heat resistant – great for standing strong between meat and fire.  The Spanish word for this tree is Los Barbadoes – from which Barbados* (an island in the Caribbean) gets its name.  Is this all coming together?  Barbeque is a 800-1000 year old word from south of the border that means throw some meat on a rack over a fire.

I spent my teen years in the Lone Star State and now feather my nest in the land of Sunflowers and Oz.  As for my personal eating and cooking style, I prefer a hybrid of Kansas City style BBQ spice and Texas BBQ sweet.  Texas is the northern apex of the Barbacoa Triangle.  In 1800s Texas, in the Hill Country to be specific, four worlds collided and brought us the delectable savor that we all argue about today.  Cutting the history lesson as short as possible, let’s weave these four strands together.  

• First, Texas turns out to be a great place to raise cattle (before they were unceremoniously herded north on the Chisolm trail).  
• Second, proximal to Mexico, Texas received significant food influences from its southwestern cousins (hence: Tex-Mex), although that whole Alamo thing didn’t help relationships. 
• Third, proximal to the Gulf and Caribbean, Texas was the point of entry for many thousands of African slaves who often laid-over in the Caribbean Islands (before being herded unceremoniously to the Continent) and they brought those Caribbean food influences with them.  
• Fourth and not to be overlooked, Texas strangely became a popular destination for large numbers of Germans who just happened to know a thing or two about meat preparation (and beer to go along with the bbq). Throw all these influences together and you have a “manifest destiny” that changed the culinary landscape of America. You could say, and some have said, that barbeque was born in Elgin, Luling, and Lockhart.

Now about that Pirate Food category… Barbacoa is the term deriving from the type of tree used to separate the meat from the heat. But there is another word that refers specifically to the rack of the barbado wood that the meat was placed on. That rack of wood was called a buccan and it lent its name to those festive young men who enjoyed a hearty, smoky meal followed by a wee bit o’ pillaging and piracy. Our beloved Tampa Bay Buccaneers and the Pittsburg Pirates (nicknamed the Bucs - short for "buccaneer") are first and foremost BBQ enthusiasts and despicable humans second.  It's all true.

* The ficus barbata is featured on the Coat of Arms of Barbados. The ficus family is notable for the manner in which the trees drop "aerial roots" which look like beards. You see these beards dangling below the bottom limbs on the tree in the coat of arms. You also see a dolphin.