Monday, April 7, 2014

A-to-Z Challenge: Fry

I could really go for some French fries about now.


You probably figured out what today’s word is.

Fry showed up in the late thirteenth century, from the Old French frire (same meaning, so I guess they had fried food back then). I can totally see why they changed that. Too many R’s in a row there. Anyway, before frire, there was the classical Latin frigere, again, same meaning, and even further back there’s the Proto Indo European bher-, cook or bake (among other things; bher is the verse- of Proto Indo European, meaning it was everywhere, and so a lot of English words stem from it). Yes, it really did switch from b to f. That’s language for you.

Sources
University of Texas at Austin Linguistic Research Center

11 comments:

  1. Not to mention that Fry is a character from Futurama...

    ReplyDelete
  2. And now I'm hungry for a funnel cake.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I've wondered if different cultures have differing terms based on what oil you cook in--butter versus lard versus olive oil, that sort of thing.

    Happy A-Zing
    Laurel
    Laurel's Leaves

    ReplyDelete
  4. I kind of like the sound of frire actually, though every day use of it would be quite funny!

    ReplyDelete
  5. I've always wondered how the process of frying got started. If it's as old as you're showing then we've been doing it for a long time. Very interesting.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Yes, we've been clogging our arteries for centuries!

    ReplyDelete
  7. The "frying" word originating from the French...no surprise there! I wonder did they fry it in butter? :)

    ReplyDelete
  8. They say that if you fry something right, it can be fairly healthy. Compared to what, I have no idea.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Changing a vowel makes it look like "brother."

    Great F pick.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Ok, now I have a serious craving for French fries.

    ReplyDelete
  11. Thank you, I didn't know any of this, I've given this blog a shout out from my own letter G on the A to Z tour today http://rosieamber.wordpress.com/

    ReplyDelete

Please validate me.