HOUSEHOLD WORDS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXVI, Issue 23274, 17 February 1939, Page 4

HOUSEHOLD WORDS

THEIR ORIGINAL TERMS FOREIGN AND CLASSIC The busy housewife handling her daily tools of trade seldom has time to pauso and think of their original meanings. Yet many are very interesting and well worth remembering. "Lunch," for instance, originally was "lumpy because the first "lunch" was simply a lump of bread. "Bread" itself was "a bit." "Jam," of course, was just something "jammed." But a "cup" was originally a "tub," because the first cup had two handles like a tub, which was in use long before a cup with a handle.

"Cabbages" used to be called "cappages," because the name is derived from tho Latin "caput," meaning a head. We took tho name "pot.ato" from the Spanish name "patata." How many mothers have corrected their children for calling an orange a "norange? " Yet the original Persian word is "narani," and "norango" was once good English. Children still say "nadder" and "napron" for an "adder" and an "apron." Here again they are using tho words as first Bpoken. In tho case of these two words tho "an" was wrongfully broken up and tho "n" taken off "apron" and "adder." Now, of course, it would bo incorrect to put back tho "n" as the children sometimes do.

"Tomato," when it first appeared was called "tomatl," the correct Mexican word for this fruit. Many have puzzled over tho spelling of "flour," which really means exactly tho same thing as "flower." "Spices" are the same as "species," and a "saucer" had nothing to do with tea or cofl'eo at first, but was something to hold "sauce." Many simple household words are foreign, while some are quito classic. "Clove is from "clou," a "nail" in French; and "bacon" is a Danish word meaning "the back of tho pig." "Rhubarb," 0110 of the most interesting words,.-unites Greek and barbarian. This fruit originally came from the Volga .River, and the "rhu" means "river," while tho "barb" refers to the barbarian country of its origin. To the cultured Greeks in tho past all people were "barbarians" if they did not speak Greek. So that "rhubarb," a Greek word ; is just tho plant from ,the barbarian river.

Our old friend "porridge" is not, as many suppose, a Scottish word, but comes to us through the Latin "porrum," a leek, the original porridge being a green leek pottage.