[Sca-cooks] sops

Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius adamantius.magister at verizon.net
Mon Jun 5 14:31:18 PDT 2006


On Jun 5, 2006, at 4:53 PM, <tom.vincent at yahoo.com> wrote:

> I wasn't bitten and etymology is only important if the definition  
> was static.  Clearly it wasn't and still isn't.

You don't find a similarity in well over 90% of the usages cited?

> The fact that the different recipes have two different definitions  
> of 'sops' but very similar ingredients...maybe some of the later  
> ones came from some of the earlier ones?

Maybe I'm receiving the list out of sync or incompletely, but so far  
I've seen a total of _one_ recipe that doesn't call for toast or  
other bread, and it hasn't been ruled out that that dish was not  
served with toasts, given the context and even other sop recipes in  
the same source.
>
> It really is okay for a word to have multiple definitions, multiple  
> contexts, a noun at one time, a verb at another.

It's okay if it's true. When I last checked this conversation, we  
were discussing its usage as two different nouns.

> I think it's really educational and interesting to view 8 different  
> recipes showing so many similarities and a few differences from  
> such a broad spectrum in time and distance.

Me, too. My intention was to quickly and loosely categorize/identify  
them according to the greatest common denominator, not to look at  
that common denominator and rule it out as significant.

> This'll blow your mind as my favorite example of extreme word  
> evolution:  In the 17th century, 'maggot' meant a fancy or delight.

Interesting, but what's your point? A simplified version of that in  
the subject at hand would be something like, sop (n), a dish of broth  
or other liquid poured over bread, => sop, (v), the act of soaking  
that liquid into that bread, and by extension, other types of  
soaking, => soup (n), a sop-like pottage that may or may not contain  
bread in the bowl, => souper, (v), or sup (v) to make and/or eat such  
a dish, generally in the evening, with a pottage and, generally, the  
stale remains of the morning's bread, => supper (n), a relatively  
insubstantial evening meal often featuring such a dish...

Adamantius



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