CHAT: Strawberry (was Re: Lexical Relatedness Morphology (wa Re: [Conlangs-Conf] Conference Overview))

On 5/7/06, David J. Peterson <dedalvs@...> wrote:
> This is what I like about LRM.  Let's take "strawberry", for example.
> When I was creating my handout, I included "strawberry" in my
> examples along with "boysenberry", etc., as a word composed of
> "berry" plus a meaningless (or unpredictable) prefix.  My girlfriend
> then pointed out to me that the "straw" in strawberry comes from
> how strawberries are grown.  I was flabbergasted.  And furthermore,
> the word changed for me forever that day.  Now in my head I
> have a story for "*straw*berry", whereas before, I had none.
Careful -- the "they're grown in straw" etymology theory is one
theory, but there are others; for example, I've heard that another
theory is that the "straw-" bit refers to the colour of the seeds on
the outside. I don't know whether anyone knows for sure why this
particular fruit is called a strawberry, only that the name is pretty
old.

*googles* Heh, Snopes specifically states that the claim "Strawberries
are so named because they are bedded in straw" is "False":
http://www.snopes.com/language/notthink/strawberry.asp .

See also http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=strawberry ,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strawberry#Etymology ,
http://www.phrases.org.uk/bulletin_board/21/messages/924.html , and
http://www.chelseagreen.com/2005/items/wholefoods/Excerpt .

Cheers,
--
Philip Newton <philip.newton@...>

Reply