The random etymology of the day

[rivka]

Everyone in the world is confused about where turkeys come from!

Apparently Russian, Polish, Yiddish (probably because of Russian or Polish), and Turkish all call turkeys Indian chickens.

[Tante Shvester]

Because they are a New World thing that Native Americans ate, I bet.

[rivka]

They are all using words that mean India, not American Indian.

[Tante Shvester]

Yet I can see how the confusion would arise.

[Jonathon]

Here's what the Online Etymology Dictionary says:

turkey (n.) Look up turkey at Dictionary.com
1540s, originally "guinea fowl" (Numida meleagris), a bird imported from Madagascar via Turkey, and called guinea fowl when brought by Portuguese traders from West Africa. The larger North American bird (Meleagris gallopavo) was domesticated by the Aztecs, introduced to Spain by conquistadors (1523) and thence to wider Europe. The word turkey first was applied to it in English 1550s because it was identified with or treated as a species of the guinea fowl, and/or because it got to the rest of Europe from Spain by way of North Africa, then under Ottoman (Turkish) rule. Indian corn was originally turkey corn or turkey wheat in English for the same reason.

The Turkish name for it is hindi, literally "Indian," probably influenced by Middle French dinde (c. 1600, contracted from poulet d'inde, literally "chicken from India," Modern French dindon), based on the then-common misconception that the New World was eastern Asia.

After the two birds were distinguished and the names differentiated, turkey was erroneously retained for the American bird, instead of the African. From the same imperfect knowledge and confusion Melagris, the ancient name of the African fowl, was unfortunately adopted by Linnæus as the generic name of the American bird. [OED]

The New World bird itself reputedly reached England by 1524 at the earliest estimate, though a date in the 1530s seems more likely. The wild turkey, the North American form of the bird, was so called from 1610s. By 1575, turkey was becoming the usual main course at an English Christmas. Meaning "inferior show, failure," is 1927 in show business slang, probably from the bird's reputation for stupidity. Meaning "stupid, ineffectual person" is recorded from 1951. Turkey shoot "something easy" is World War II-era, in reference to marksmanship contests where turkeys were tied behind a log with their heads showing as targets. To talk turkey (1824) supposedly comes from an old tale of a Yankee attempting to swindle an Indian in dividing up a turkey and a buzzard as food.

[Porter]

Unlike blueberries, which get their name from the color, oranges aren't named for their color.  The color is named after the fruit.  Before they were widely enough propagated that people were familiar with what they looked like, there just wasn't a good name for that color.  They called it "yellow-red" or, later, "saffron".

This is why we call them redheads -- the term was coined before the word 'orange' entered the language.

[Tante Shvester]

I've heard that before they were orange, carrots were purple.  The orange color was bred and propogated for political reasons.

[rivka]

You can still find purple ones. And white.

[Annie Subjunctive]

That's true - it's a Dutch thing.

[rivka]

I don't know about that, but organic-type markets sometimes have bags with 4 different colors of carrots (purple, white, deep orange, and pale yellow).

[Tante Shvester]

The Dutch Protestants bred orange carrots to honor the House of Orange, which became crazy popular, because they were such patriotic vegetables.  But this was after the color took it's name from the fruit, or I suppose we'd be calling that color "carrot" instead of "orange".

[rivka]

The Dutch Protestants bred orange carrots to honor the House of Orange, which became crazy popular, because they were such patriotic vegetables.

There is actually very little evidence to support this popular claim. It's at least as likely that the orange ones were bred because they are sweeter and less starchy.

[Brinestone]

I'm going to grow multicolored carrots in my garden this year. I'm curious what the purple ones taste like.

[dkw]

Pretty much like the orange ones.

Also, the varieties we grew were only purple on the outside.  When you peeled them they were orange.  It was very disappointing. Same with red.  The yellow ones were yellow all the way through.

[Brinestone]

Well, thanks for the heads up. Actually, now that I think of it, we did buy multicolored baby carrots once, and yeah, they basically all tasted the same.

[Tante Shvester]

There's a green one and a pink one and a blue one and a yellow one and they're all made out of carrototty and they all taste just the same.

[Annie Subjunctive]

They're like the M&Ms of vegetation.

[Jonathon]

I recently learned that bodega and boutique are essentially the same word—the former is the Spanish and the latter is the French descendent of the Latin apotheca, which is the source of apothecary. The Romans borrowed the root word from Greek, where the word meant "barn" or "storehouse".

I also really like this note on boutique in the Online Etymology Dictionary: "Latin apotheca directly into French normally would have yielded *avouaie." Apparently the process by which it evolved from Latin to French preserved a lot of sounds that otherwise would have been lost.

Edited for clarity.

[rivka]

Am I correct in assuming that apothecary is related as well?

[Jonathon]

Oh, yes. I should have made that clear.

[rivka]

Drugs, dresses, and a breakfast burrito, all in one place! Talk about one-stop shopping.

[Jonathon]

 

[Annie Subjunctive]

That's interesting!

My husband and I have talked about bodega before. It's only in certain varieties of Spanish (Puerto Rican was the only one we've come across) that it has the meaning of "small store" that we use it for in English. In all the other varieties of Spanish he's familiar with, it still means something like "cellar" or "storage area." In his Honduran Spanish the meaning is closer to "warehouse," and in the Spain Spanish in Pan's Labyrinth they use it to mean a pantry.

[rivka]

It's only in certain varieties of Spanish (Puerto Rican was the only one we've come across) that it has the meaning of "small store" that we use it for in English.

Which explains why it's commonly used that way in NY, and much less so here in SoCal.

[Tante Shvester]

Paraphernalia originally meant all of a woman's property besides her dowery.