376 Wisconsiii Academy of Sciences^ ArtSj and Letters, 



Tvas spelled napron till its initial was stolen bv the article before 

 it. So anger was once spelled nanger, adder nadder, umpire 

 numpire, orange norange ; nick-name and nonce still retain the 

 initial n, nick being formed from an eke, that is an added name. 

 Saucer, before t^a was known, had a wider meaning than now. 

 It is derived from salt which gave name to every variety of 

 seasoned thing as well as condiment, which word means what is 

 given with another thing to savor it. Hence the words salad, 

 sausage, sauce and so on, all indicating something salted, and 

 saucer, the dish which contained them. 



Many foodstuffs are better known to us than are their names. 

 Corned heef, a termi obscure to most who eat it, is contracted 

 from salt-corned, and corned means with kernels of salt as large 

 as corn, what we now call coarse salt. Buchwlieat became a 

 more significant "vvt)rd when I ascertained that Vv^lieat is another 

 spelling of white, and that buck is an obsolete form of beech. 

 Buckwheat being three-cornered like a beechnut, is beechnut 

 wheat. 



Poach being a word kindred to pouch shows that eggs are 

 said to be poached because they seem to be each in a pouch. 

 Toast becomes self-explaining Avlien we see it to be allied to 

 torrid, and so is bread terrified. Drinking a toast finds expla- 

 nation in the custom of putting toast in cups of wine. Some- 

 thing of it would sink to the bottom of the cup so that he who 

 drank a toast must drink deep and drain his cup. Analogous is 

 the word carouse which is made up of two German syllables 

 that signify all out. 



But nothing on our tables is such an etymological surprise as 

 cream. This article, kno\\m in Italian as the flower of milk, in 

 Prench as well as English is cognate in origin with Christ. 

 Both come from a vrord meaning to anoint with oil. Cream is 

 the oil of milk. Christen comes from ohrismi, the anointing oil 

 used at baptisms, and Christ is the one anointed prophet, priest, 

 and king. Few food naiues^are less understood than cream. 

 ISTone is more misunderstood than turkey. Soon after the death 

 of Columbus the turkey was discovered in Mexico by Cortez and 

 through him was introduced into the old world. But Jiow could 

 an American product have gotten a name from an Asiatic em- 

 pire ? The misnomer resulted from geographical misconcep- 



