Month: April 2014
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the food groups, part ii
This post, we pick up on the food groups, looking at dairy, protein, and oils. Dairy Dairy is the kind of word that makes etymology nerds like me jump up and down. It features disguised compounds. When words get smashed together with other words, sounds change and forms change, sometimes making one word look like another, other times burying…
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the food groups, part i
What’s on your plate? At the Mashed Radish, I hope its lots of…root vegetables. Please throw a tomato at that one. This post–just because–let’s have a taste of the etymology of the major food groups, as defined by the United States Department of Agricultures’ “MyPlate”: What can I say? Some people can’t resist chocolate. I can’t…
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Easter
For me, a good word origin is like discovering an Easter egg, hidden in plain sight yet holding a sweet surprise inside. What surprise might the word Easter hold in its shell? Easter Any hunt for the origin of Easter points back to the Venerable Bede (~672-735). He was an English monk, scholar, and translator. Perhaps his greatest legacy is his Ecclesiastical…
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fool
The custom of April Fools’ Day has been traced to changes in calendars, Roman festivals, and that spring spirit in the air. Finding the true origin of April Fools’ Day may well be a fool’s errand, but what do we know about the origin of the word fool? It turns out its etymology is up to a…
Mashed Radish 