“So I was out with my squad,” Arlene told me and Jess as we sat in a new hip coffee joint called The Exquisite Exequies, “and we went to this fancy restaurant, and somehow we ended up having squab.”
Jess raised her eyebrows. “That’s unexpected.”
“Yeah,” Arlene said. She paused to sip her coffee and peer up at the oversized stuffed Harlequin. “I thought that was something you did to decks.”
“Swab?” I said.
“Yeah, I guess I kind of swapped words there. Anyway, that’s not what we thought we were getting. It was dim and the menu was in a kind of squiggle, so we had to squint. And then when it arrived there was a little squabble. See, I thought it said squid.”
“Wouldn’t it have said ‘calamari,’ then?” Jess said. “They don’t usually like using the plain English word.”
“So why do they use the plain English word for squab, then?” Arlene said. “What would that be in Italian anyway?”
I was already on it; I had my phone out. “…Piccioncino, apparently.”
“That’s kinda cute,” Arlene said. “It sounds like a sausage. Or a Starbucks drink. (Oops.)” She glanced around to make sure no one had heard her say “Starbucks.”
Jess also had her phone out. “Wait, Google Translate says ‘piccioncino’ means ‘lovebird’.”
“What?” Arlene said. “I ate a lovebird? Oh, that’s sad.” Jess raised an eyebrow at her. “I mean, a literal lovebird bird,” Arlene clarified, “not, you know… figuratively.” She turned a pink that was probably similar to the colour of her squab – they’re usually served fairly rare. Also fairly rarely.
“Squab is not a lovebird,” I said. “‘Piccioncino’ literally means ‘little pigeon’, so that’s why it gave me that. The French word for squab is ‘pigeonneau’, which also means ‘little pigeon’.”
“But it’s not literally a little pigeon,” Arlene said.
Jess started nodding sadly. I added a sad nod.
“One-month-old pigeon,” I said. “Grown to adult size but not yet flying.”
“Oh no,” said Arlene, looking a bit squicked. “That’s even worse.”
“They’re farm-raised, not wild caught, if that matters to you,” I said. “You’re not getting a bird from the parking lot that’s been dining on trash. Pigeons have been raised for food for all of recorded history.”
“I mean, it wasn’t bad…” Arlene said. “Maybe a bit small.”
“Yeah, I think bigger birds just give better return on investment,” I said. “Chicken, turkey, goose.”
“All of which,” Jess said, “are also insults. Unlike ‘squab.’ Oh, and ‘duck.’”
“What?” Arlene ducked slightly and looked up and around. The various plasticine fairies suspended from the ceiling remained immobile. “Oh, ha ha. …So they call it ‘squab’ because ‘pigeon’ would bother people?”
“It doesn’t seem to bother the French or Italians,” Jess pointed out.
“Yeah, but on the other hand,” I said, “they also call other kinds of meat after the animal: ‘bœuf, porc.’ We don’t say we eat pig or cow.”
“Or squid,” Arlene said.
“We do eat duck and chicken, though,” Jess said.
“I think part of it in this case,” I said, “is that a squab is not a fully adult pigeon. It’s grown to adult size, but it’s still young and fat and hasn’t gotten tough from flying. The word ‘squab’ was first used for any kind of fat young bird, and then it generally got narrowed to mean a pigeon. The word has also been used to refer to cushions –” I glanced at the overstuffed superannuated pink bolsters on the sofa I was occupying – “and people who… resemble a cushion.”
“How rude,” Arlene said.
“That’s true. I don’t think it’s used like that anymore.”
“Well, it does sound… pudgy.”
“So, mister phonaesthetic?” Jess said. “Is that where it comes from? Sound symbolism?”
“We don’t really know,” I said. “It kind of showed up in the 1600s. It may be related to a Swedish dialect word that refers to fat or flab. There’s an old ideophone ‘squab’ or ‘squob’ that imitates the sound of something landing with a heavy fall or squash.”
“So it could be,” Jess said, “that it just fell squob into the language.” She picked up a small decorative beanbag and dropped it on the coffee table for effect.
“Or burst into it like a squib,” I said.
“A damp squib,” Arlene offered.
“Moist,” Jess said. I winced. “Speaking of which,” Jess added, “how was the squab?”
“It was… good,” Arlene said. “Kinda fatty. So even though it wasn’t big, it was filling.”
“Made a square meal?” I said.
“More like round,” Arlene said. “But I didn’t even entirely finish mine.”
“Wasn’t it expensive?” Jess said.
“Yeah… I kinda squandered it, I guess.”
“Did it come with a vegetable?” I said.
“Oh!” Arlene said. “Yeah, it was –”
Jess interrupted her. “Let me guess –”
And, nodding in unison, they said, “Squash.”
Sesquiotica 