Bunches of Great Words

We couldn't get out of the "p's" last essay, but I definitely will "escape" this time. Yet, I want to begin for a moment on a word we all know--precocious. It's original usage was in the world of plants or flowers, and was used to describe a flower, especially a tulip, which flowered unusually early. From 1658: "There are likewise Precoce and rath-ripe Cherries, which are to be planted where they may stand warme." I like the old phrase rath-ripe, for the original meaning of rath is "early" or "coming before others." Thus, the next time I go to a garden show, I may ask those there to tell me about the "precocious" flowers they have. The opposite of precoce is serotine. The Latin serus means "late."

2. Let's move to some "s" words, beginning with one of my favorite Italian-derived terms: strozzapreti. Literally, the word means "strangles the priest," and it is a culinary term. Italian seems not to be ashamed to use words like "puttanesca" (like a prostitute) to describe a kind of dish; so why would one hesitate to strangle a priest with the meal, so to speak? It is typically an elongated form of cavatelli or hand-rolled pasta. Here is a picture. One source says it looks like a "rolled towel." Why, pray tell (or "preti" tell) is is so named? Well, no one really knows, but this article gives a few possible explanations.

3. Well, now that we are on the "s's" and on food, we might as well do springerle, hard biscuit originating in Germany, flavored with anise and embossed with a bunch of different designs, normally served at Christmas. Here is a humorous page on someone's effort to make springerle. She calls it the "third battle of springerle."

4. Then, we had the word spiedino [spee DEE no] at the spelling bee in Portland last night. It is defined as a meat dish rolled around a filling or minced and formed into balls, which is then batter-dipped and cooked on a skewer." Pictures are on this page. Interestingly enough, the OED has the term spiedie but not spiedino, and it says that it is a "US Regional" term. The examples it gives are from New York and Chicago. This article tells us that spiedie is a dish local to Greater Binghamton in New York. You wonder if there is such a thing as "lesser" Binghamton... It seems like I remember the "lesser" part when I visited.

5. I guess I should return to the "p's" for one more food term--puchero. The OED describes it as "A Latin American or Spanish stew or thick soup typically made with meat and vegetables or pulses." Here is a Spanish-language page describing and portraying the puchero, a tasty-looking stew-like dish. I think that the paucity of our imagination often results in the isthmian character of our vocabulary....

6. Let's take a digression for a momen to dinic, a word I am sure I hadn't previously seen. It is a rare word, attested only in the 18th and 19th centuries, and is derived from the Greek dinos, which means "whirling." Thus, at first it meant "relating to dizziness or vertigo," but then was taken over by the medical profession to refer to "a medicine used to cure dizziness." Thus, the first definition we have, from 1706, is "Dinica, Medicines against Dizziness." Or, still later, it was used to refer to medicines that "remove giddiness." Hm. I can think of medications that tend to induce giddiness, but why would you want one to remove it? Thus, if you ever use the term, which would seem unlikely, you have to distinguish whether the dinic in your cabinet removes your vertigo or your laughter. It makes a difference...

7. Let's move along to scalpriform, a term meaning "chisel-like" or "truncate at the end and beveled there to a sharp edge." There is a great picture in the Century which shows the shape, which it goes on to say it is characteristic of a rodent's incisor tooth. Well, the next time you rip your pants or shirt, tell your significant other that it was a scalpriform object that tore it, probably the incisor of a rat. I am sure that would make your evening lively.

8. I will conclude this essay with the word scambling or scambling days or scamblingly. To scamble means "to stir about in an eager, confused way; scramble; struggle for place or possession." Thus scambling is "scrambling, struggling, without method or regularity." A rhyming synonym is "shambling." Shambling, scambling, scrambling, rambling...It can also suggest something that is disorderly, such as "A find old hall, but a scambling house." The Church took over the word in the phrase "scambling-days" to describe the "Days in Lent when no regular meals were provided but everyone 'scrambled' and shifted for himself the best he could." Or, from this source:

"The ancient English name for the Mondays and Saturdays in Lent, when no regular meals were provided, and the members of the great families scambled. In the old household book of the fifth Earl of Northumberland there is a particular section appointing the order of service for these days, and so regulating the licentious contentions of them..."

That's enough for one more day--with still a few words left to go!

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