So that means the pom/pomme de terre/potato connection is spurious? It's what I was told.
Does anybody mind if I pass out?
Willow ,'Beneath You'
All Ogle, No Cash -- It's Not Just Annoying, It's Un-American
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§ ita § - Feb 04, 2003 9:33:31 am PST #1739 of 9843
Well not canonically, no, but this is transformative fiction.
evil jimi - Feb 04, 2003 9:33:46 am PST #1740 of 9843
Lurching from one disaster to the next.
Much safer bet to stick with criminals and fruits.
Yeah because we know how fruity criminals can become over time.
Betsy HP - Feb 04, 2003 9:36:13 am PST #1741 of 9843
If I only had a brain...
An Irish friend of mine claims the plural of "grouse" is "grice". Is she pulling my leg?
Nutty - Feb 04, 2003 9:36:13 am PST #1742 of 9843
"Mister Spock is on his fanny, sir. Reports heavy damage."
On the pomme de terre front, aside from good Cheech & Chong puns, what is the point of calling a potato an apple-of-earth? Did teh guy who coined that name ever even look at a potato? Potatoes look nothing like apples, taste nothing like apples, and you don't hear about potato cobbler or apple chowder.
Is this a French thing I don't understand?
Jess M. - Feb 04, 2003 9:36:18 am PST #1743 of 9843
Let me just say that popularity with people on public transportation does not equal literary respect. --Jesse
Likely not the place for this question, but it's about an accent, so maybe somewhat appropriate....did anyone see last night's CSI:Miami? What accent was the cop sporting?
Jim - Feb 04, 2003 9:37:04 am PST #1744 of 9843
Ficht nicht mit Der Raketemensch!
See above re- fruity criminals. More transported for buggery than sedition...
billytea - Feb 04, 2003 9:38:40 am PST #1745 of 9843
You were a wrong baby who grew up wrong. The wrong kind of wrong. It's better you hear it from a friend.
So that means the pom/pomme de terre/potato connection is spurious? It's what I was told.
Yeah, that one's pretty unlikely. The connection was supposedly that British soldiers in WWI ate a lot of potatoes, but 'pom' was probably already in use by then (M-W dates it at 1912, which to me seems a little hopeful in its precision). There are also theories that it was an acronym for Port Of Melbourne, or Permit Of Migration, or had something to do with Portsmouth. I believe the pomegranate deal is now pretty widely accepted among etymologists.
evil jimi - Feb 04, 2003 9:39:52 am PST #1746 of 9843
Lurching from one disaster to the next.
yeah and we all know how fruity etymologists ... never mind
Fiona - Feb 04, 2003 11:34:14 am PST #1747 of 9843
Dun: means old fortess and Dee is the name of a river, hence Dun Dee means the castle on the river Dee.
...Except that Dundee isn't on the Dee, it's on the Tay. Unless "Dee" is a corruption of "Tay" in this case, but there also happens to be a river called the Dee, thus confusing the whole issue.
Allan Lang - Feb 04, 2003 11:38:27 am PST #1748 of 9843
'And on that tragic day, an era came to its inevitable end.'
That's all there is.
What billytea "All Ogle, No Cash -- It's Not Just Annoying, It's Un-American" Feb 4, 2003 10:49:02 am EST said.
The advantage of the jimmygrants-pommegrants explanation is that it does have contemporaneous evidence backing it.
The term "Jimmy grant" or "jimmie" occurs in books published in the 1845-1880 period.
The jimmygrants-pommegrants connexion is less well documented. The term pommy is documented in 1912, and there is testimony from people (although only recorded in the 1980s) that they used the rhyme as children to mock the English in the years prior to WWI.
G A Wilkes dates the origin as possibly as far back as the first (voluntary) mass immigration on the clipper ships of the 1870s.