Chicken, celery, mayo

#21

I’m not even going to check that!

You’re obviously correct. LOL.

#22

Oh yeah, when I man comes with facts like that you know you don’t need to google check it.

#23

Nope. Paul knows his stuff.

#24

And there are 18 or so cities and towns named Buffalo in the US, but the one in NY is the only one that, well, never had buffalo within its environs. Some people speculate that the name was an evolution of the french “beau fleuve” meaning nice or beautiful river.

(Bacon is a many-splendoured thing) #25

It’s a good possibility, since the Niagara Falls are spectacular. We lived in Buffalo until I was nine, and some of my favourite memories are of traveling over the Peace Bridge into Niagara Falls, Ontario (I used to think it was Toronto, which is a couple of hours away, lol!), where there is a lovely park with some great swimming places, plus a large floral clock. (I hope the clock is still there! I remember it as being very beautiful.)

#26

Ha, nice…I lived in Syracuse for three years and whenever I had to make the drive there from Boston I remember being tired after 5 hours straight on I-90 and used to say, “Could be worse…could be going to Buffalo!” Ha…

#27

@PaulL, Ironically, I’m reading American Buffalo by Steven Rinella, and I just read page 41 where he says “The word ‘buffalo’ likely originated in a roundabout way involving the English. In Shakespeare’s time, military men often wore a type of protective jacket known as a buff coat; these coats were thick and soft and made of undyed leather. When Englishmen arrived in the New World, they would often describe any animal that yielded such leather as a ‘buff,’ be it a moose or a manatee.” :sunglasses:

(Bacon is a many-splendoured thing) #28

The other explanation is that “buffalo” derives from the ancient Greek “boubalos,” since buffaloes have been known since antiquity. Which would make “buff” derive from “buffalo,” not the other way round. But in any case, your story makes for a highly plausible explanation of how the word “buffalo” got misapplied to the American bison.

(Bob M) #29

I listened to this, about the Comanches:

I thought it was great. The Comanches ate mostly or all meat.

But it was shocking to see how people slaughtered the buffalo. Killed them by the thousands.

#30

You may be on to something here. Rinella notes that the word “bison” was introduced since there were already buffalo in other areas of the world that looked and were different than the “American Buffalo.” He notes that it appeared to have caused more confusion given that bison and buffalo mean the same thing.

(Bacon is a many-splendoured thing) #31

Pedants tend to get upset at such misappropriations, but any linguist can tell you that this is a normal process. While I hate ambiguities (unless it is clearly stated in advance that we are going to be ambiguous), I can also see that too much precision can be stultifying.

Interestingly, the whole science of etymology is ultimately based on an idea the ancients had that words all had a “true” meaning, which tracing their derivations was intended to uncover. Linguists have formally abandoned that notion these days, but it still seems to persist, at least to some extent, in a lot of our thinking about words and where they came from.

#32

What was named first?

The colour orange, or the fruit? Which was named after which?

These things keep me awake at night…you see why I do gin now?

:smiley:

#33

Pretty sure that as a general rule, the things always came before the colours.
No one really cared about colours in language before modern times.
So most of our colours are bases on things.

Another weird thing about colours is that Blue was one if the last colours to be recognized. Many older languages do not even have a name for it.
Maybe its just not important to talk about colours before art, fashion, etc.

#34

Good stuff! Makes sense.

I’ll sleep well tonight then.

:smiley:

#35

Maybe both were named after the Orangutan apes of Borneo?

Dammit…that’s the night’s sleep messed with again.

(Bacon is a many-splendoured thing) #36

Orang utan in Malay and Bahasa Indonesia means “person of the forest,” so nothing to do with oranges, although the colour of their fur . . . :grin:

Apparently the name of the fruit derives ultimately from Sanskrit naranga-s. Etymonline.com also has the following to say, among other things:

Not used as a color word in English until 1510s (orange color), “a reddish-yellow color like that of a ripe orange.” Colors similar to modern orange in Middle English might be called citrine or saffron. Loss of initial n- probably is due to confusion with the definite article (as in une narange, una narancia), but also perhaps was by influence of French or “gold.” The name of the town of Orange in France (see Orangemen) perhaps was deformed by the name of the fruit.

#37

I’m from Ulster- I know all about Orangemen (and women), LOL.

:rofl:

(Bacon is a many-splendoured thing) #38

I used to think that my father’s mother’s people came to the U.S. directly from Scotland, but Dad remembers her as saying, “I’ll wear green on St. Patrick’s Day when they agree to wear orange on Orangemen’s Day.” So apparently, like my mother’s father’s people, her people came via Ulster. The irony is that my grandmother’s maiden name was Stuart!

#39

Plenty of Orangemen in Scotland too.

(Bacon is a many-splendoured thing) #40

Interesting. I didn’t know that. Then maybe Nana’s people weren’t Ulster Scots, after all.