Category Archives: word tasting notes

pesto

Posted on March 3, 2009 | Leave a comment

This word comes to us from Italian, of course (Ligurian, to be precise), but it has gradually attained citizenship in our language. Its form still seems Italian, though we might note that if kid can become kiddo and boy can become boyo, then if the kid or boy is being a pest this word could be formed, aside from the dissonance between the tone of pest and the chumminess of the -o suffix. At any rate, this word seems, through the sapidity of its object, to have avoided taking on too much of the negative tone that pest could have given it. One might as soon think of pestle – after all, one could use a mortar and pestle to make pesto. Such a pity the words aren’t related: pesto‘s Latin source is pistum, past participle of pinsere “pound, crush,” whereas pestle‘s Latin forebear is pilum “shaft, stake, javelin.” This word can also call forth the st in taste due to the realm of reference, and of course those Thom(p)son twins of Italian cuisine, pasta and antipasto (which, like Thompson and Thomson – a.k.a. Dupond and Dupont – are not related, in spite of appearances). Other fainter hints include best and pistol. Anagrams include estop and poets. But the object, a sauce of nuts (typically pine nuts), herbs (typically basil), cheese, garlic, and olive oil, can top whatever taste the word may bring.

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mizuna

Posted on March 2, 2009 | Leave a comment

Does this word look like a brand name? Just look at the shape of it: the mi with the row of vertical lines and arches, and the curve repeated and rotated later on with the un, and in between that z… an escalator, a fancy desk, a sidewalk spinner, a lightning bolt… Even the oral locations of the vowels make a neat triangle: high front, high back (plus rounded lips), lower central. A brand designer’s dream! But you’d be thinking of Mizuno, makers of sports gear (an eponym at that – it’s a family name in Japan). It’s the same mizu, which is written with the character that in Mandarin is said shui (“shwhy”) and means the same thing: water. So this mizuna is water what? Hint: you may have some in your fridge, in a bag of mesclun, nestling to a kindred spirit, watercress. The na, you see, means “greens.” And the z may hint a bit at the shape: jagged leaves, a bit like dandelion greens (the taste is a little jagged too, peppery; it’s a mustard green). That z, since it’s from Japanese, is pronounced like an English z, giving the word a vague echo of mizzen, another word found near water. Since it’s Japanese, the zun is even more likely to remind anglophones of that most horridly overused, misused word, zen (a loan to Japanese from Sanskrit dhyana, meaning “meditation”), so often applied to commercial orgies diametrically opposite in spirit to Zen Buddhism. Is mizuna amenable to zen? Well, it is vegetarian. I’ll leave you to meditate on the remainder…

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slum

Posted on February 27, 2009 | Leave a comment

A word that seems just made to be down at the heels. The opening sl is wet or messy: don’t slouch or slur or you’ll slide down a slippery slope like a slug into the slush. It commects with um, heard in dumb and bum and, um, um – also in hum and strum and thumb and come and yum, but the sl opening and the definite slump echo are likely to clarify which set of ums it goes with! If this word sounds louche, well it should; it comes from the cant of the criminal class (attested by 1812), and originally meant a room. Of course, given whose word it was, it was not a high-class room, and soon enough it came to refer to the cramped quarters of the English outcastes. And if some toff wished to ditch his pile for some infra dig digs, he could cutely enough call it slumming – we now use the verb fairly broadly, but always with the sense of taking a downward holiday from one’s regular station. Slums are cramped quarters where many may brush shoulders, and this word brushes shoulders with quite a few in regular use: dweller, lord, clearance; also sprawling, housing, urban, city; lately Sadr City in Baghdad has come often in the same sentence; and, now tattooed into our tongue, slumdog (which for contrast goes with millionaire).

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languor

Posted on February 26, 2009 | Leave a comment

Ah, languor! Can you bear it any longer? Are you desperate, like Eva Longoria? Look: you are so weak u can’t even make it past the o. This word will not end as in favour or colour; instead, it has the beginnings of anguish but also of languidity. Such lassitude – confuse it not with lentitude, which may be present, but (to make a Tolkien mention) in Fangorn is no languor. This word starts out with la, which may be a listless note, perhaps sung in a boat adrift at sea, unable to make it all the way to land. The tongue lolls back, touching at the velum. There is the beginning of language, but it fails to come of age, stymied by choice: the or turns it aside, and then we lapse into silence. The very air in the mouth is viscous, as though gummed with guar. The word itself has made a stirring and lain back: it is Latin languor, same in sense, which in Old French tried to eject the o or the u, but they failed to achieve escape velocity. Its kin languish, a verb, managed some change, but this noun… ah, what can be done.

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koi

Posted on February 25, 2009 | Leave a comment

This word’s sound may suggest affected shyness on the part of its object, but one would hope otherwise. After all, if you have bought that common collocation of koi, a pond, you will want these variously coloured (selectively bred) fish to be on ornamental display, or else you will be more inclined to the English name of the species: carp. In Japan, whence this word, the fish are symbols of love and affection, because another word koi means “love” and “affection” (koi no ochiru is “fall in love” – or perhaps “drop the carp”?). So if you present a pond to your paramour, you will hope that neither koi nor companion will be coy. But spelling can matter more than just that much: the k beginning and i ending on this word both signal foreignness; a coloured carp pond is not exotic, and a coy pond would not seem so, but a koi pond, now, that “ain’t from around here.” One may be tempted to see the word in ideographic ways: the k like a fish tail, the o like an eye or a pond, and the i… well, perhaps like the lonely sweetheart standing by pond’s edge wondering where his fish and fiancée have fled to.

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fandango

Posted on February 24, 2009 | 1 comment

Its association with a whiter shade of pale nothwithstanding, this word has always seemed rather florid to me, with its wide-open a‘s like an arm flourish and its bouncy nasals with stops. Its object is a lively dance in 3/4 time, fitting for a word that springs in three steps from the front of the mouth to the back. How light can the light fandango be? And would vestal virgins leaving for the coast take time for it, really? Much more likely Scaramouche – but he’d do it to a Bohemian rhapsody, which might cause thunderbolt and lightning, very very frightening. Well, and the word does have those fang and fungus resonances, which apparently didn’t help the computer game Grim Fandango to get enough dang fans. The dance (and music) is brought by the grace of Spain, whence medially also this word; the word’s ultimate source may be African, but the steps have not been traced back, etymologically. The word has a sense of dance about it, anyway, and enthusiasm too. The dance could be a fan dance, perhaps like a tango (with music by Django Reinhardt?), originally done by the Mandingo. But whatever it is, it’s what you get when fantastic meets hot dang.

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yam

Posted on February 22, 2009 | Leave a comment

A word meant for a food. Its apparent source, the west African word nyam – which refers originally to the act of eating – is even more so: not simply onomtopoeic but, more than most words could be, mimetic. Naturally this word is likely to make one think “yum.” It also has the yeah echo, which may be positive, reserved, or ironic. We know that Popeye loved spinach, but he surely made many people think of this word: “I yam what I yam.” Those who encounter Latin often, for instance in choral music, may also think of it whenever they meet the word iam – as in iam amore virginale totus ardeo (a love for virginal yams burns everything up?). Yam is a small word for what is actually a rather large tuber; the y does root into the ground, but the rest is just there, more in size like the smaller sweet potatoes, which often borrow this name. Sweet potatoes are actually unrelated to yams (and they’re sweeter), but when west Africans came to the new world (not usually voluntarily), like most people moving to new places they tended to name unfamiliar things with available familiar words (think buffalo, for instance, or sparrow – and we should remember that hippopotamus comes from Greek for “river horse”). Recently wild yam has become popular in natural health circles, while habitués of brew pubs are more likely to ask for yam frites.

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carfax

Posted on February 21, 2009 | Leave a comment

This word looks like a complement to car phone. (Unsurprisingly, it’s also the name of a company that offers vehicle history checks.) It may also make you think of a town in England, or rather a place in a town (Oxford, among others) or even a building at that place (Carfax Tower). It will have a special resonance for stokers of Stoker, as Carfax Abbey is where Dracula beds down in England. If you read Asterix comics, it may strike you as a name suited for one of the Britons Asterix meets in Asterix in Britain. It has a pleasing crispness to it, [k]s and fricatives, and the a‘s around the r and f have an appearance that may be reminiscent of people passing a turnstile – or perhaps a turnpike, a large turnstile used in centuries past at road toll gates. The x could look like a top view of the turnpike. As it happens, it also resembles a top view of this word’s object: a crossroads. The word is related to French carrefour, which comes from Latin quadrifurcus, “four-forked.” And if you come to one such in a car, it is best to have your facts straight.

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usufruct

Posted on February 20, 2009 | Leave a comment

The cups run over… or, anyway, they overrun the word; three u‘s, because this word is all about u, u, u – specifically what u can use. It may be a usual use, but it’s use of the fruit of another, so don’t be tempted too much. If you hold your cup out more than three times, you may c it tipped over, and then you’re so – um – frustrated. Anyway, the word begins with us, because what’s mine is yours – but only to enjoy, not to use up! The mutuality of the arrangement is haptically iconized by the simultaneous velar and alveolar stopping at the end. And what’s the fruct? If it looks like fruit to you, you’re right: it’s from the Latin for the same. This word, before it was re-Latinized, was (in the 15th and 16th centuries) usufruit or even use fruit. Like when your neighbour’s tree hangs into your yard (over a fence, like an f hanging over an r) and you take the apples that fall from it. Does that sound like something that could lead to a legal dispute? Fair enough – this term is pure legalese. It’s often found in the company of rights and sometimes plots; access and properties can show up too. It’s always good to ink it out so no one will sue if you let someone use your cruft.

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zugzwang

Posted on February 19, 2009 | Leave a comment

This word seems like a comic-strip sound effect for being bent over sharply on a mattress frame or other instrument of torture. Or perhaps a ducking move made with arrows flying over your head. The two z‘s and the mouth shift from puckered at u to wide at a give a clear sense of sharp reversal or turn, like a pull and a push; the first g – especially if you pronounce it properly, as [k] – is a sudden stop, augmented by the mechanical catch of the [ts] sound of the z‘s, and the final ng resonates, even moreso with the aid of the [v] sound from the w. A word like this could only get by, at least in English, with referring to something unpleasant. So what is it? German, unsurprisingly. The zug root means “pull” originally (and still), and from that we get German Zug “train” and also Zug “move,” which is the sense here. (Note that in German nouns are capitalized. But this word has been adopted by English, and as an English noun it is not capped.) The zwang means “compulsion” or “obligation.” A chess player will tell you what you get when you put them together: a forced disadvantageous move. Stuck between the devil and the deep blue sea, between a rock and a hard place, not knowing whether to sh*t or go blind, all roads lead to Hell and you have to take one of them. Imagine zugzwang being the sound of a magician firing a nasty spell in the form of a lightning bolt from his hands. If you’re the chess player putting the other in zugzwang, you get that feeling (suppress evil laugh). If you’re the one being zapped, you may notice a slight resemblance between the first part of the word and sucks…

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