The 12 episodes of the Netflix show that you watched on Saturday. The full pint of Ben & Jerry’s you ate last Thursday night. The entire series of books you read in one week. When we enjoy things, it’s normal for us to indulge in them. There’s even a handy little word we pull out just for these instances of indulging in something we love: binge. …
Champagne has been associated with luxury, special occasions, and rites of passage since the days of French royalty when kings were anointed with bubbly. But not just any bottle of the sparkly stuff gets to be called a champagne. Where did this festive libation get its name? And what makes a champagne a champagne? What champagne is made from Champagne is a sparkling wine made …
It’s Thanksgiving time, and while some folks will be piling their plates with turkey and mashed potatoes, we can’t pass on the opportunity to consider a dish named with one of the greatest portmanteaus of all time: the turducken. Let’s talk turducken A portmanteau is a blended word that’s made by putting together parts of other words—like motel, made from motor and hotel, or brunch, …
The berry family is a linguistic invention particular to Germanic languages, like English. Other languages, like Spanish and French, do not combine the wide, diverse berry family into one group, but rather have very different words for blackberries, raspberries, blueberries, and strawberries. Where does the word berry come from? The word berry comes from the Old English berie, which originally meant “grape.” As the English language spread …
Have you ever stopped to wonder why we eat pork and beef, but not pig or cow? Menus don’t advertise sheep or deer, but mutton and venison. And, we nonchalantly nosh on veal without the linguistic reminder that we’re actually eating meat from a baby calf. When it comes to designating meat terminology, the English language has a few ways of distinguishing between the live …
There are, of course, many complex ethical, environmental, and nutritional reasons for choosing vegetarianism in all its different forms, but we wanted to know—where did the words themselves come from? Who invented veganism? Vegetarianism has been around for a very long time. Some studies of mummified Egyptians show they had vegetarian diets. Historians also date this diet back to Ancient Greek philosophers, and religious sects …
Thinly dressed with yellow mustard and slapped between two slices of white bread, bologna is found in the lunchboxes of many American youth. But, what does the cold cut have to do with baloney, a slang word that implies nonsense? The bologna sausage is traditionally made from the “odds and ends” of chicken, turkey, beef, or pork. It is similar to the Italian mortadella, which …
