Well done. Full marks.
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I think that’s bullshit but I am not sure.
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He is talking about the etymology of the word, which is decidedly not the same as what the word means in daily use in modern Japanese.
おはようございます (ohayou gozaimasu) similarly literally means “it is early,” with the implicature being “you are early,” but that is not how it is actually used.
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This is a great series on Youtube and if you’ve never seen an episode, I highly recommend it…
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Probably this is a better place to continue my tangent:
That’s not the only case where Polish borrowed more words than strictly necessary. For example, the Polish word for orange (fruit) is pomarańcza, which comes from Italian pomo arancia, literally - “apple of the orange tree”. (Pro tip: you can compare apples and oranges if the oranges are actually apples.)
And that’s just one instance of a broader genre in botanical names: “all fruits are basically just apples, right?” There’s the “golden apple”, pomo d’oro, which is what tomatoes were called in Italy (and after adoption of that word in Polish and Russian - also throughout much of Eastern Europe and Central Asia). There’s the French pomme de terre, “apple of the earth”, aka potato. And then there’s pomegranate, from Italian pomo granato, which is really just an apple with a lot of grains / seeds.
(Yes, the correct explanation is that originally in Latin pomum meant all fruit in general, and only later did the meaning narrow down to just “apple” in other Romance languages, but that’s too boring.)
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And in turn from pomegranate we get the words grenade and garnet. Named for the overall form of the fruit and the appearance of its seeds respectively.
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Finnish language has picked up the word pomeranssi for bitter, or Seville, oranges. Now I wonder if we got that from Polish?
Pomegranate, then, is granaattiomena or literally “garnet apple”. (Grenade, then, is “kranaatti”, which is an older loan and the initial ‘g’ has changed into a ‘k’.)
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Or German, where Pomeranze also means specifically the bitter orange
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Or
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(in some regions1)) a small, refreshing sour apple (occasionally a pear, even)
[source] -
(outdated term from the Biedermeier era) a young woman from the country2) (“country lass”); in most contexts used in a “joking”, patronising (at best) way3)
[source] -
the leather tip at the end of a billiard queue4)
[source]
1) Per the cited source not in Franconia. A place, and I say this with warm approval, that doesn’t confuse apples (or pears, even) with citrus fruit.
2) As Pomeranze or as the compound word Landpomeranze.
3) Like this whole post.
4) The bit you rub the chalk on.
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Well that song induced a bout of acute homesickness
No, but we confuse pears with potatoes
Interestingly enough, that is originally student language, which is an interesting field of language study in itself. I wonder if other languages have such a strong influence from (medieval and early modern) university student culture. I can’t think of any examples in English offhand.
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Interesting question…
Oh no, another rabbit hole to dive into!
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Speaking of rabbits:
(If you don’t know already you’ll never guess.)
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Because you prompted us, when he said you’ll never guess where this name comes from, my brain jumped to a recipe from that country: rabbit with blackberry jam and white wine vinegar. It’s really good, and works with chicken too.
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