Fw: Fw: [Sca-cooks] How the turkey got its name ...

[Phlip]

Fwded this along to Gene Anderson, and here's his comments:

Ene bichizh ogsen baina shuu...

> All my dictionaries and bird books are at home, but I'll get on it
> tonight.  Meanwhile, some thoughts.  The Turkish words are correct (of
> course).  I think maize is "Egypt" because it was assimilated to sorghum,
> which really did come to Turkey from Egypt.  Maize and turkeys are called
> "Indian" in much of Europe because they came from the (West) Indies, and
> everybody just confused Indies and India.  Turkey got its turkey word that
> way.  And of course the American word "corn" for maize is shortened from
> "Indian corn"--"corn" in English means any seed or grain (as in acorn,
> which is "oak corn").  In British English corn means growing grain,
> especially wheat.
> Messing up origins in naming plants is so standard that one is amazed to
> find cases, like the Lima bean, where the name is sort of accurate--lima
> beans really are beans and really do come from the Lima area.  The
> Jerusalem artichoke is a Mississippi Valley sunflower, and nobody really
> knows how it got so misnamed.  The Jerusalem oak is a European tiny
> weed.  The guinea pig is a rodent from Peru ("guinea" may be from
confusion
> with "Guyana," but "Guyana" is pretty far from Peru).  The Irish potato is
> also Peruvian, and is not the original potato ("potato" being from
> "batata," the West Indian name of the sweet potato).  And so on.  And, for
> that matter, horseradish isn't a radish and has nothing to do with
> horses.  Ambrose Bierce in the Devil's Dictionary finishes up a similar
> list with the observation that "toad in the hole does not include a toad,
> and riz de veau a la financiere is not the head of a calf prepared
> according to the recipe of a she-banker."  Oh well.
> I"ll check out the specifics tonight and get back to you.
> best--Gene Anderson

Saint Phlip,
CoD

"When in doubt, heat it up and hit it with a hammer."
 Blacksmith's credo.

 If it walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, it is probably not a
cat.

Never a horse that cain't be rode,
And never a rider who cain't be throwed....



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