Edible idioms & edible euphemisms
I had enough fun with last week’s post to go a second week with food-related
terms. Here’s hoping you’re having a good time with them, too.
The
word giblets
appears to have been constructed as a euphemism so people eating giblets
wouldn’t be reminded they were eating the organs of a game bird, also known as offal (though we never see offal on the menu, do we?). Giblets
comes from a French term that meant game
stew, a word that has its roots in falcon-hunting.
And
continuing in the world of euphemisms, who would sit down at an expensive
restaurant and order swollen goose liver?
There’s a reason restaurateurs embraced the French term pâté de foie gras.
Another
food euphemism is sweetbread. This euphemism showed up in the 1560s. Isn’t it
amazing diners are more likely to savor
sweetbreads than the literal alternative – calf or lamb pancreas?
When something is sentimental
or sappy, we might call it corny. This idiom made its debut in
American English in 1932. It was preceded by the short-lived idiom corn-fed, which appears to have been – in part – a way for cityfolk to slander those who
lived in the country.
In
Britain in 1858 the word cheesy came to mean fine & showy, but forty years later
in America the cheap or inferior
meaning of cheesy was born. At the time, American university students were
using the word cheese to label an ignorant
person. Etymologists are pretty sure the American idiom cheesy
was born of this put-down.
When
someone’s goose is cooked, his/her hopes
are gone; he is finished. This idiom entered English in 1845. The story
appears to be that any farmer scrabbling for a living would likely have a
number of chickens, but only one goose. As times got harder & harder, the
farmer might eat his chickens one by one. But it was a sure sign all hope was
lost when he cooked his goose.
Any
chance any of you want to add a food idiom or euphemism to the heap? If so,
please do so in the comments section.
Big thanks to this week’s sources:
Etymonline, Wordnik, Merriam-Webster, Ralph Keyes’s Euphemania (2010 – Little Brown), & Webb Garrison’s Why You Say
It (1992 - Thomas Nelson)
I remember the first time I went to a fancy Italian restaurant with my parents and they ordered sweetbreads and I wanted them too. But they told me I wouldn't like them. How could I not like sweet bread? When their order came I was so glad I got the spaghetti :-)
ReplyDeleteIsn't that strange that "cheesy" went from meaning posh to downmarket. Cheese usually makes things taste yummier, so how could that be bad? Maybe it's like schmaltz, which is chicken fat, which when overdone can be pretty overwhelming and um, schmaltzy
There's also that expression "to cheese somebody off." I wonder where that one came from? Maybe a question for another post?
Hi Anne,
DeleteI love schmaltz -- hadn't heard that before. As to cheese, it seems to get around. There's also "cheese it!" meaning "let's get out of here." Dairy mysteries abound!
"BRING THE CHEESE," IN BASEBALL MEANS FOR THE PITCHER TO THROW HIS FASTBALL. AND THEN, OF COURSE, THERE'S . . . BUT WE WON'T GO THERE ON A FAMILY BLOG-SITE.
ReplyDeleteSteve! It's grand to see you digitally engaged. I hope you're feeling grand in the Heart & Para-thyroid Department...& elsewhere, too.
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