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aloha
The Mashed Radish will be off the next week or so. I’m happy to be celebrating a family wedding on the island of Maui in Hawaii. Technically, that’s in Maui County, which seems like such an incongruous thing to say. One just does not associates islands with counties. Aloha–which, in English, has come to be… Read more.
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socks & cardinals
Fast Mash Sock, attested as socc as far back as 725, is from the Latin, soccus, meaning “slipper,” which may come from a yet more Ancient Greek word for some type of early footwear Cardinal, as in “fundamental” and numbers, comes from Latin’s cardo (hinge) The adjective form of the noun, cardinalis, gave us the name for the Catholic… Read more.
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on shakespeare, surfers, & slang
“Gnar-gnar.” Forget you, grammar scolds. It’s an utterance like “gnar-gnar”–which I heard my fiancée’s sister pull out of her ever playful idiolect for gnarly (that’s a compliment, Britt)–that makes me love language. Because, in all its clipped and reduplicative glory, “gnar-gnar” spans an invisible bridge between Shakespeare and surfers. And because it also gives me occasion… Read more.
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hostage
Fast Mash Hostage comes into English from the French in the 13th century, when it meant handing over a person to another party as a pledge to fulfill an undertaking It might come from Latin’s obses (hostage, pledge, security, guarantee), literally someone “sitting before” an enemy Or it might be from Latin’s hospes, a word… Read more.
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breakfast, lunch, & dinner
Fast Mash Appearing in the 15th-century, beakfast joins break and fast, with the latter indeed related to its adjective form Lunch is less clear; lunch is shortened from luncheon, which may be an extension of lunch, possibly from lump (compare bump and bunch); luncheon may have been formed on analogy to words like truncheon In the… Read more.
Mashed Radish 